The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando has chosen the composer José Luis Turina as number academician for the Music section, in the session held yesterday, Monday, March 28. His candidacy was proposed by the pianist Joaquín Soriano, the film director and screenwriter Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón and the musicologist José Luis García del Busto, who read the 'laudatio'.
José Luis Turina (Madrid, 1952) trained at the Barcelona and Madrid conservatories, studying violin, piano, harpsichord, orchestra conducting and composition, among others. In 1979 he received a scholarship from the Academy of Spain in Rome, giving him the opportunity to learn the composition improvement classes taught by Franco Donatoni.
In his influential formation, among others, José Olmedo –orchestration teacher– and Salvatore Sciarrino.
The awarding of the IV International Prize for Musical Composition Reina Sofía (1986), for his ambitious work for orchestra Ocnos, based on poems by Luis Cernuda, was a boost in his career. A prolific worker, he has received constant commissions from national and international institutions.
José Luis Turina has developed a commendable didactic work from the surroundings of teaching and management. He has been a professor at the conservatories of Cuenca and Madrid and at the Reina Sofía School of Music, has taught courses and conferences in Spain – International Festival of Contemporary Music of Alicante, School of Advanced Musical Studies of Santiago de Compostela, etc.– and in different centers in the United States such as the Manhattan School of Music or Colgate University.
Committed to improving the methodology of music teaching, he served as technical advisor to the Ministry of Music and Performing Arts within the framework of the LOGSE. From 2001 to 2020 he was artistic director of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain and, later, president of the Spanish Association of Young Creators. He has been a member of the Inaem music council and the artistic council of the National Music Auditorium.
Tradition and modernity coexist in the musical language of Turina, being one of the best specialists in contemporary Spanish music.
He is a corresponding academician of the Academy of Fine Arts Santa Isabel of Hungary (Seville) and of Our Lady of Angustias (Granada). His talent and dedication have been recognized with awards such as the National Music Prize from the Ministry of Education and Culture (1996) or the Gold Medal from the Madrid Royal Conservatory of Music (2019).
