Alida Vázquez

Alida Vázquez was born in Mexico City around 1931, although the exact date of her birth is not known with certainty. An American composer, she trained first in her native country and then in New York, where she spent much of her career.

Between 1941 and 1947 she studied piano with Esperanza Cruz de Vasconcelos and theory with Julián Carrillo at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música. The following year she moved to New York, where the Diller-Quaile Music School awarded her a scholarship and where she worked with Mario Davidovsky at City College. In 1959 she enrolled at Columbia University's School of Journalism, although from 1960 she devoted herself mainly to music therapy and, from 1976, taught at the Bank Street College of Education.

Her catalogue includes numerous works for solo instrument and chamber music, song cycles such as Acuarelas de México, and pieces with electronic media, among them music for dance. She is noted for her rhythmic energy, a quality present in the Pieza para clarinete y piano and the Música para siete instrumentos. Her principal publisher was See-Saw Music, of New York.