Keyla Orozco

Keyla Orozco (Santiago de Cuba) established herself in The Netherlands as an independent artist since 1996. She is currently living and working in the US, sharing her professional career between these two countries mainly. She recently served as a Composer in Residence at Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras.
Awards: Her compositional work has been awarded among others with the Guggenheim and the Cintas Fellowships as well as a MacDowell Residency Fellowship (all three in USA), First and Second Prizes at International Composition Contest René Amengüal in Chile, and  the National Cuban prize for Symphonic Composition UNEAC.
Commissions and performances: During the last 20 years Keyla has received several commissions by the main Arts Funding organizations in The Netherlands; to write for internationally aclaimed  Dutch ensembles and soloists such as: the Nederlands Kamerkoor, Nederlands Fluitorkest, Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Asko Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Combustion Chamber, De Ereprijs, Ricciotti Ensemble, David Kweksilber Big Band, Susanna Borsch, Ernestine Stoop, Mikhail Zemtzov, Mondriaan Kwartet, and many others. She has been commissioned as well in the US by Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras and ZOFO duet. Her works  are  regularly performed in festivals and events around the world such as North Sea Jazz Festival, Holland Festival, ISCM Miami, Sonido de las Américas;  at venues like Carnegie Hall and Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Concertgebouw, Carré Theater, Muziekgebouw aan het Ij, Bimhuis, Tropentheater and Parasdiso Theater in Amsterdam, Teatro Amadeo Roldán in Havana, among others.
​ Other activities: Her curiosity for exploring other Latin-American folk rhythms and the idea of integrating them into her compositions, leaded her in 2006 to a field-research on the traditional Venezuelan/Colombian Music known as “Música Llanera’. The project was subsidized by the Nederlands Fonds Podiumkunsten (Dutch Performing Art Fund). As a result, her later compositions have been strongly influenced by this music, being the case of 'Estudio del Pajarillo',  Habanera en Pajarillo voor de gestolen fiets', 'Met de schoenen' and 'Piezas de Bolsillo'.
After organizing diverse inter-disciplinary events in Cuba and Holland, she co-founded in 2004  the Stichting PerpetuumM, a foundation to promote Latin-American art and culture in The Netherlands. Festival ‘Q-ba Música’ (2004) and Series ‘Latijns-Amerikaanse componisten aan het ij’ (2006-07) were projects co-directed and produced by Keyla Orozco within this enterprise, in which she worked until 2008. See more... Teaching: Orozco's teaching career started in 1993 as a professor of Counterpoint at the Instituto Superior de Artes in Havana. Since 1996 she has been working in the Netherlands (and more recently in the US as well) both at institutions and privately, giving Composition, Piano and Music Theory lessons. She worked as an assistant professor of Composition in the class of Theo Loevendie at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, as well as teaching Piano at the British School in The Netherlands. She has led master classes and lectures at Universities, Conservatories and events around the world. Currently, she is a music faculty at Washington International School. Keyla is focussed on children's music education, directed to develop creativity and broaden musical skills. She has become specially interested in the Early Childhood music world, and the application of the pedagogic methods of Jaques-Dalcroze, Kodály and Orff.  Music Education: Keyla received professional music education since the age of 8. She started with Piano at the Esteban Salas Conservatory in Santiago de Cuba, under the solid tradition of the Russian School. In 1988 she obtained her diploma in piano pedagogy and performance at the Escuela Nacional de Artes (ENA) in Havana, with Yleana Bautista as a main teacher. Later, she studied composition with Harold Gramatges at the Instituto Superior de Artes  (ISA) in Havana, obtaining her Bachelor degree in 1993. Between 1995-98 she followed advanced composition studies in The Netherlands with Theo Loevendie, at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague and Conservatorium van Amsterdam.