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Reinaldo Moya
A 2026 Guggenheim Fellow and composer whose music explores identity, memory, and migration. From his early training in Venezuela's El Sistema to performances at Carnegie Hall, Severance Hall, and the Kennedy Center, his work bridges classical tradition with the rhythms and complexity of modern Latin America.
Reinaldo Moya's music moves between the rhythms of Latin America and the structures of classical music, treating both as a living language. His music is forever searching for the right language for each moment, reaching from the sublime to the mundane, the beautiful to the ugly. At its core, there is always a sense of beauty, passion, and a hint of grief. His works reconstruct a version of his native Venezuela that only really exists in his own memory.
“The Island of the Imagined Birds,” the last movement and the most thrilling piece of music on Wild Cities, is built on a progression that could be a tango. But this repeated music is continually scuffed by elongation or shrinking, generating a quirky, unpredictable groove of the sort you might encounter in some contemporary jazz. It’s simultaneously brainy and physical, perfectly embodying Anderegg’s description of a “smooth surface and animated inner rhythms.” This is music I can get excited about.”
— from review of Imagined Archipelagos recording: I Care If You Listen (2016)
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