Reinaldo Moya Composer

Reinaldo Moya is a graduate of Venezuela’s El Sistema music education system. Through El Sistema, he had access to musical training from an early age and was a founding member of the Simón Bolívar Orchestra touring throughout Europe, North and South America.

He graduated from The Juilliard School with both masters and doctorate degrees, under the tutelage of Samuel Adler and Robert Beaser. He received his Bachelors in Music degree from West Virginia University, where his principal teacher was John Beall.
He is the recipient of the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letter, the 2015 McKnight Composers Fellowship, the Van Lier Fellowship from Meet the Composer and the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland House. In January 2020 he was announced as the winner of the $20,000 Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Composer Award. His Piano Concerto was premiered by Joyce Yang and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra (under Lucas Richman) in October 2021. In her review for the Bangor Daily News, Judi Harrison said “[The concerto] also demonstrated that Moya is a composer who has much to say about the human condition in the 21st century and should be listened to often.”

His works have been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra (with Osmo Vänskä), the San Diego Symphony (with Rafael Payare), the Juilliard Orchestra (with Carlos Miguel Prieto), the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela (with Joshua Dos Santos), the New Jersey Symphony (with JoAnn Falletta), the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra (with Matthew Kraemer), the Lakes Area Music Festival Orchestra (with Gemma New), the Charlottesville Symphony Orchestra (with Ben Rous), the Orquesta Sinfónica de San Juan, Argentina (with Emmanuel Siffert), the Orquesta de Cámara de Bellas Artes in México (with Ludwig Carrasco). Other performers include the Jasper Quartet, the Oberlin Conservatory Orchestra, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Lysander Piano Trio, the Attacca Quartet.

He has been named as the Composer-in-Residence of the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra from 2021-24, where he will compose new orchestral and chamber works and serve on the artistic board.

He was the Composer-Residence at The Schubert Club in Minnesota from 2017-19, which led to the commissioning and premiere of his chamber opera Tienda in May 2019. The premiere was hailed by the Star Tribune for its "proud individuality... [and] textures of pulsing vibrancy, subtly shading harmonies to trace the fragile emotional arc of his central characters." His family opera Memory Boy, with a libretto by Mark Campbell,  was commissioned by the Minnesota Opera for its Project Opera and premiered in February of 2016. Excerpts from his opera Generalissimo (about the life, death and afterlife of a fictionalized Latin American dictator) have been performed in New York at Symphony Space and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Excerpts from his opera Generalissimo were premiered in June 2013 at Symphony Space in New York City. Other performances from Generalissimo followed in November 2013 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. His violin concerto Vestida de mar was co-commissioned by the Greenwood Music Camp and the Lakes Area Music Festival. It received its premiere in the summer of 2019 with Francesca Anderegg as the soloist and conducted by Benjamin Rous and Gemma New. His orchestral piece Siempre Lunes, Siempre Marzo was performed by the New Jersey Symphony and The Juilliard Orchestra, under the batons of JoAnn Falletta and Carlos Miguel Prieto, respectively. In the fall of 2016, his Passacaglia for Orchestra was chosen by the audience and the musicians of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra as the winner of the Earshot Composers Competition sponsored by the American Composers Orchestra.

Mr. Moya has taught at St. Olaf College, and Interlochen Arts Camp, and is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at Augsburg University in Minneapolis.