Mario Lavista

Mario Lavista (Mexico City, 3 April 1943) is one of the most influential Mexican composers of his generation, and his importance lies as much in his output as in his work as a teacher and editor.

Trained at the Conservatorio Nacional, where he studied composition with Chávez and analysis with Halffter, he broadened his horizons through periods of study abroad that shaped his musical language.

In 1967 he moved to Paris, where he took composition lessons with Marie and attended courses given by Xenakis and Pousseur. The following year he became a pupil of Stockhausen in Cologne and took part in the summer courses at Darmstadt. Back in Mexico in 1969, he taught composition at the Conservatorio Nacional and founded the group Quanta, which focused on improvisation. In 1972 he was invited to the electronic music laboratory of the Japanese radio and television broadcaster NHK in Tokyo, where he composed Contrapunto. In 1982 he founded the journal Pauta, one of the most important music publications in Spanish, and in 1987 he was named a member of the Academy of Arts of Mexico. His music has frequently been performed abroad, particularly in the United States, where the American Composers Orchestra premiered Lacrymosa in 1994.

His early works explore contemporary techniques, as in Cluster or in Kronos, for fifteen alarm clocks. Over time he absorbed very diverse influences until forging a recognisable style. Like Berio, he has explored new timbres derived from traditional instruments, above all through multiphonics in wind instruments. The influence of Cage can be heard in a conception of time and sonic space that produces markedly static sonorities, whose gradual transformation across a work is a characteristic trait. Many of his pieces also draw on literary sources, such as epigrams, and on pictorial images, as in Jaula for prepared piano, inspired by paintings by Arnaldo Cohen and Rufino Tamayo.

As a teacher of composition and analysis, Lavista has exerted a notable influence on several generations of Mexican musicians. His legacy combines a body of work with a distinctive language and a pedagogical and promotional activity that has helped shape the contemporary musical landscape of Mexico.