José María Sánchez-Verdú is a composer, conductor and musicologist who trained in Spain,
Italy and Germany. He also has a degree in Law from the UCM and an International Doctorate
from the UAM/Dresden. He is an Honorary Professor of Composition at the Robert Schumann
Hochschule in Düsseldorf and, since 2019, he has been a Professor of Composition at the
Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid. He has been invited to teach in numerous
countries including Spain, Germany, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Peru, South
Korea and Chile. The institutions at which he has taught include: the Sibelius Academy;
the Mozarteum Salzburg; the Musikhochschulen in Munich, Bremen, Nuremberg and Dresden; the
UdK in Berlin; the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana; the Conservatorio G. Verdi di
Milano; the Internationale Ensemble Modern Academy Frankfurt and Hanyang University in Seoul.
His prizes include: First Prize at the Junge Deustche Philharmonie (Frankfurt); First Prize
from the INAEM-Colegio de España in Paris; the Irino Prize (Tokyo); the Förderpreis of the
Siemens-Stiftung (Munich); the Prize from the Bergischen Biennale (Wuppertal); the Culture
Prize from the Government of Bavaria (Villa Concordia); the Premio Nacional de Música and
the Ibn Arabi Prize. He was composer in residence at numerous festivals in Germany, Spain,
Switzerland, Austria, Peru and Poland, among others, including the Carinthischer Sommer
Festival (Austria, 2005), the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical (2014-2015), that of the
Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra (2015-2016), and the Festival Internacional de Música y
Danza de Granada (2024).
Since 2024 Sánchez-Verdú has been a full member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de
San Fernando de Madrid.
His extensive catalogue contains works which cover a broad range of genres: orchestra,
chamber music, opera, musical theater, and interdisciplinary projects which use the
facilities, architecture and light as working dramaturgies. His works have been performed
in major festivals and by orchestras in venues all over the world, such as the Deutsche
Oper Berlin, the Münchener Biennale, the Biennale di Venezia, the Teatro Real de Madrid,
the Palau de les Arts Valencia, the Luzerner Theater, the Salzburg Biennale, the Musica
Viva Munich, the ECLAT Stuttgart, the Ultraschall Berlin, the Wien Modern, the Lincoln
Center in New York, and the Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires. His compositions are published
by Breitkopf & Härtel.