Tobias Álvarez Di Desidero
Born & raised in London, UK (1996) in the heart of a Latin American family of artists, Tobías's curiosity to build and play with space developed through lego blocks. Soon after he discovered that his same passion for shaping space and time could be achieved through music.
Tobías has lived and studied in the UK and in Mexico. In Yucatan, Mexico he began his formal studies in piano with profesor Alberto Alvarez and soon after with Arturo Gastelum in the state of Morelia. A few years later, upon his return to Merida, he studied with renown professor Marielí Sosa. In 2013, he began studying composition at the Yucatán Superior School of Arts under the tutelage of Dr. Javier Álvarez and Mtro. Erik Baqueiro. In 2015, he began his formal studies in composition at the Faculty of Music of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with Mtro. Leonardo Coral, and later in 2019 with Dra. Gabriela Ortíz and Dr. Jorge David García. In 2022 he studied orchestration abroad at King’s College London under the tutelage of Dr. Ed Nesbit. In 2023 He became beneficiary of the Arturo Márquez Extraordinary Chair of Musical Composition, in which he studied composition and orchestration with the maestro.
Tobías has been awarded in several national and international competitions: The 2016 Accordion Composition Competition "Wind Box - Eva Zöllner" supported by Goethe-Institut México. (Mexico City, MX), Junior finalist at the 2018 Antonin Dvorak International Composition Competition (Prague, CZ), 1st place at the 2019 Composition Competition "Music of Seismicity UNAM" (CDMX, MX), 1st place at the 2020 Composition Competition for Saxophone UNAM Faculty of Music (Mexico City, MX), Honorific mention at the 2020 Yucatán State Composition Competition "Daniel Ayala Pérez" Category: Concert Music (Yucatán, MX), among others.
He has received funding and grants for artistic creation from various institutions such as: State grant for artistic creation from the secretariat of culture “PECDA Yucatán 2018”, Grant for Cultural Agents, “Sound resilience 2020” Category: Composers from the Culture & Music department of UNAM and, the 2023 Arturo Márquez Extraordinary Chair of Musical Composition.
His music has been performed in Mexico, UK, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland. As a creative mind he has dedicated himself to the composition of solo, chamber, orchestral instrumental music as well electroacoustic music in an eclectic way. In addition, he has worked as producer and sound designer for interdisciplinary projects such as Cygnus, ensemble of electric swans 2019 (Lucerne, SZ) as well as the exhibit “Blue roads” Reinterpretation of the Art heritage of the State of Yucatan (Yucatán, MX): Sound Design & Music, 2019.
He has worked and participated in the production of festivals and for artistic institutions such as the Centre for Digital Arts in Mexico, the Mérida International Brass Festival, Yucatán Jazz Festival and the UNAM Faculty of Music Festival for Mexican New Music "Aires". He has also worked as a researcher and speaker at colloquiums such as the National Forum of Musical Research of CENIDIM 2020, with the work "Analysis of the repertoire of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (2006-2019)". He graduated in music composition at the UNAM Faculty of Music with the dissertation: "Overview of technologies for music creation in academic composition".