Featuring music by
UT Austin student composers
Composers from Centro Mexicano para la Música y les Artes Sonoras
abOUT rODRIGO sIGAL
Rodrigo Sigal has lived in Morelia since 2006 and has become a key figure in the cultural life of the state. Over the past 33 years, he has developed a multifaceted career as an artist, educator, and cultural manager, establishing himself as one of the most compelling creators of his generation and a central figure in the creation, innovation, and dissemination of contemporary music in Mexico and beyond.
He founded the Mexican Center for Music and Sonic Arts (CMMAS) in 2006; co-founded the Bachelor’s Program in Music and Artistic Technology at UNAM’s National School of Higher Studies (ENES) in 2017, where he also teaches; created the Latin American Sound Art Network in 2002; and has served as the editor-in-chief of Ideas Sónicas, the only Spanish-language journal focused on music, art, and technology, since 2008. He has also been a member of the Artistic Committee of the Morelia Music Festival “Miguel Bernal Jiménez”, demonstrating his commitment to strengthening educational, research, and outreach spaces for music in its many forms.
Rodrigo Sigal holds a PhD from City University of London and a postdoctoral degree from UNAM, as well as a cultural management diploma from UAM and the Inter-American Development Bank. He has continued his creative and academic pursuits with support from institutions such as FONCA (he was a member of Mexico’s National System of Creators from 2011 to 2018), the DeVos Foundation (USA), UC-Mexus (University of California), and PAPIIT (UNAM). He was also awarded a Fulbright grant in 2024, and since 2019, he has been a member of the National System of Researchers (SNI-1).
He has served as a jury member for international events such as Cuba’s “Casa de las Américas” Composition Prize and the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music, as well as for leading grants in Mexico’s creative system. He has mentored numerous projects and was guest editor of Organised Sound (UK, 2025). He has been invited to give lectures and masterclasses at institutions such as Harvard University (USA), the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (Argentina), and the Fred Fox School of Music at the University of Arizona, among others.
In 2024, he received the Bellas Artes Medal in Music from Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA). He also received the Study UK Alumni Award (2017) for Professional Achievement from the British Council and was awarded First Prize at the Luigi Russolo Electroacoustic Composition Competition (Italy, 1999). His works have also received honorable mentions in competitions held in Chile, the UK, France, and Italy.
Throughout his career, he has bridged technology and sound exploration, allowing him to work across genres such as soundscape composition, electroacoustic, instrumental, acousmatic, and visual music, collaborating with dance, film (including an Ariel Award nomination for original score), and theater. He has established networks with artists and performers at local, national, and international levels, while also contributing to research and education in the arts.
His music has been premiered in over 25 countries by internationally renowned performers including Norio Sato and Ensemble Nomad (Japan), the Schubert Ensemble (UK), and Itsván Matúz (Hungary). In Mexico, his works have been performed by Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Ensamble de las Rosas, Ensamble Onix, Trío Neos, and Alejandro Escuer. He has received commissions from Radio France Internationale, the Japan Foundation, and the National Choir of Estonia, among others. His music has been featured in major festivals such as the Festival Internacional Cervantino (Guanajuato), Foro de Música Nueva “Manuel Enríquez” (INBA), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), International Computer Music Conference (Chile), Ars Electronica (Austria), Montreal Nouvelles Musiques (Canada), and Nagoya Music Festival (Japan), among many others. He has also participated in festivals throughout North and South America.
For over 20 years, he has been a member of the intermedia ensemble Lumínico, with whom he has performed across Mexico and in over 10 countries. The ensemble has received the prestigious México en Escena grant from the Mexican government’s arts funding system. His music has been released on DVD and 19 CDs, four of which are entirely dedicated to his work, and on various digital platforms. He has published academic articles in leading music journals and a book on creative processes and musical composition (in both English and Spanish).
Since 1996, he has worked from Morelia on musical projects in Mexico that link performance, new technologies, and sound, seeking to create artistic spaces for reflection and interaction between performers, digital sound, and space.
With 30 years of experience as a composer, he studied in Mexico with Mario Lavista, Daniel Catán, María Antonieta Lozano, and Alejandro Velasco, and later in London with Javier Álvarez, Denis Smalley, Simon Emmerson, among others.
As a cultural manager in Morelia, Sigal designed and launched Acercamientos Sonoros, an educational and cultural program aimed at bringing children from public schools in Michoacán closer to music through creative and playful activities. Through workshops, concerts, and interactive sessions, children learn to create their own sounds and compositions using musical instruments, everyday objects, and their own voices—while promoting cultural diversity, creativity, and artistic sensitivity grounded in values such as respect, tolerance, and openness.
He is the founder and director of the Visiones Sonoras International Festival of Music and New Technologies, which has taken place uninterruptedly for 20 years, featuring leading artists in the field of music technology in free, public presentations in Morelia. He has also curated over 300 concerts at CMMAS, providing diverse perspectives to students and general audiences alike.
Rodrigo Sigal’s career is a testament to his dual role as a creator and a catalyst for artistic transformation. He has championed the use of new technologies as powerful tools for artistic expression and development, mentoring university students (UNAM/ENES), advising undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral theses, and leading workshops. Having chosen Morelia as the base of his professional life over 20 years ago, Sigal has established himself as a globally recognized creator deeply engaged with his community.
His current creative focus is on the exploration of hybrid works using technology, centered on pulse and rhythmic interaction between recognizable sound sources and technological elements, as a means of crafting compelling sonic narratives. For Sigal, music is one of many ways of organizing sound, with the unique capacity to move, impact, and communicate.