An “undeniably exciting composer” (Opera News), Jimmy López’s music displays “a brilliant command of orchestral timbres and textures” (Dallas Morning News) and “a virtuoso mastery of the modern orchestra” (The New Yorker). His works have been performed around the world by leading orchestras such as New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.
In the 2024/25 season López is a Mead Composer-Curator with Chicago Symphony Orchestra for which he curates an evening of chamber music for CSO’s MusicNOW series. A new orchestral work, written for and dedicated to conductor Christian Reif, will be premiered by commissioners Cincinnati, Detroit and Gävle Symphony Orchestras. Elsewhere, his works will be performed by orchestras including Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, and Sarasota Orchestra.
During the 2023/24 season, the first part of López’s Symphony No.4: Eclipse received its world premiere by Houston Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada; tenor Michael Fabiano premiered a new song cycle entitled Quiet Poems at Arizona’s Tucson Desert Song Festival; and López’s new Trombone Concerto Shift was premiered by soloist Jörgen van Rijen, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and Tarmo Peltokoski. Further performances will take place during the 2025/26 seasons with co-commissioners San Francisco Symphony and San Diego Symphony.
Further highlights include the orchestral work Loud (2023), which received its world premiere in San Francisco by International Pride Orchestra conducted by Christine Brandes. Loud was co-commissioned by San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. López’s critically acclaimed orchestral tone poem Aino (2022) was commissioned and premiered by Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, and has since been performed in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic and the USA. In December 2022, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and Catalyst Quartet gave the world premiere of López’s song cycle Airs for Mother at 92NY Center for Culture & Arts in New York. López’s piano concerto Ephemerae (2021), commissioned by London Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado and Philadelphia Orchestra, continues to receive performances by its dedicatee Javier Perianes. López’s Symphony No.3 Altered Landscape (2020), a project in collaboration with the Nevada Museum of Art, was premiered in May 2022 by Reno Philharmonic conducted by Laura Jackson; the work received its UK premiere in 2023 by BBC Concert Orchestra and Anna-Maria Helsing.
Among López’s earlier orchestral output is Perú Negro (2012), which received its BBC Proms debut in 2023 with BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Klaus Mäkelä. The much-loved Fiesta! (2007) has received over 130 performances worldwide, making it one of the most-performed contemporary works in the orchestral repertoire.
López has also written works for the stage, with the oratorio Dreamers receiving its world premiere in California in 2019 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Philharmonia Orchestra. In 2015, Lyric Opera of Chicago commissioned López’s debut opera Bel Canto, based on Ann Patchett’s novel of the same name. It became the bestselling opera of the company’s 2015-2016 season, was broadcast by PBS and was nominated at the 2016 International Opera Awards.
López’s discography includes four portrait albums dedicated to his works, notably 2022’s Aurora & Ad Astra, released by Pentatone and featuring Andrés Orozco-Estrada, violinist Leticia Moreno, and Houston Symphony. Aurora was nominated for a 2022 Latin GRAMMY award in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition. The same year, his song Where Once We Sang with lyrics by Mark Campbell was also recorded on Pentatone by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and pianist Kirill Kuzmin.
A native of Lima, López studied at the city’s National Conservatory of Music before graduating with a Master of Music degree from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and with a PhD from University of California, Berkeley. López currently lives in California.
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
