Sebastian Quesada
Sebastian Quesada is a Costa Rican composer interested in exploring the ambiguous and subjective nature of music to evoke specific imagery. Through a blend of diverse genres and processes, his compositions aim to address musical narratives that are connected to our cultural and social perceptions.
His work typically uses music as a vehicle to metaphorically delve into concepts outside of the musical realm, integrating both traditional and modern languages and techniques. Quesada’s pieces span a variety of media, including large and chamber ensembles, solo pieces, incidental works, installations, and more. His music has been performed in North, Central and South America, Europe, and Asia by different ensembles such as the Harlem String Quartet, the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, the Oberlin Symphony Orchestra and Reverso Trio, among others.
Quesada’s pieces have been selected for performance at the Leonard Falcone International Euphonium and Tuba Festival and the International Trombone Festival. His music has also been recorded. Particularly noteworthy are the projects with Thomas Mesa and Michelle Cann through a grant from PARMA Recordings and the Sphinx Organization, as well as the recording with Latin-Grammy Award winner Eddie Mora. Among his awards and honors are the first place in the 2020 Barbara Wagner Composition Commission Competition, the winner of the 2014 Orchestra Readings for Young Composers by the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica and a runner-up of the 2020 Guitar Composition Contest “Promises of the Guitar.” In addition, he is a Future of Music Faculty Fellow through the Cleveland Institute of Music with support from the Sphinx Venture Fund and was the composer in residence for Willapa Bay AiR in June 2023.
Quesada holds degrees in composition from Michigan State University (DMA), Truman State University (MM) and University of Costa Rica (BA). He has studied with Ricardo Lorenz, Zhou Tian, Charles Gran, Victor Marquez-Barrios, Carlos Castro and Luis José Herra. He also holds a MM in music theory from Michigan State University.
Mirrors
(III Movement)
Composed 2018, Revised 2024 – Clarinet, Violin, Piano
From the composer: “Rituals can be seen as events that symbolically or literally bring about a transformation from an earlier to a later state. These events are very common in our lives and they include ceremonies such as birthdays, baptisms, marriages and graduations that operate as the culmination of different liminal processes. All of them involve an ambiguous passage through a threshold, which implies a metaphorical destruction of a symbolic person, identity or condition in order to create a new version of the same entity. Without depicting a specific liminal experience, Mirrors for violin, Bb clarinet and piano tries to describe this process. The piece is divided into three movements and each one represents one part of the process.“