Browse through the music page and listen to recently uploaded soundbites for:

'Gel, Foc, Temps' (2003, solo organ), 'Conversation with J. Beuys' (2005, flute, clarinet and piano), 'La Muerte y la Donzella' (2005, sopr., oboe, cello, guitar), 'Crime' (2009, piano trio), 'MicroSuite' (2006, solo cello), 'Une Poupée en Flammes' (2007, perc. quartet), 'Echo and Narcissus' (2009, string orchestra), 'Litanies On the Collapse of One's Reality' (2008, solo guitar).

You can also hear the whole of 'Echo and Narcissus' and read about the compositional process in my Blog.

'The Thinking Machine', Oscar's first string sextet, has been selected for the Internacional Conference on Contemporary Music 2010 in A Coruña. Oscar's work was selected from more than a hundred international submissions by a panel including composers Antón García Abril, Tomás Marco, José Luis Turina and Juan Durán and conductor Victor Pablo Pérez.

Oscar will take part in the conference touching upon the relation between language and music, and will attend the Spanish premiere of 'The Thinking Machine' during the Conference's own cycle of concerts. Key speakers include composer Tomás Marco and linguists Bernard Comrie and David Gil, both from the Max Planck Institute. The resident composer of the 2010 Conference will be Tristan Murail.

Pianist Bojana Dimkovic premiered a selection of Oscar's 'Piano Variations' (2003) in the wonderful Gothic setting of St. Cyprian's, Clarence Gate (London). The complete set contains twelve variations, organised in four groups of three variations, which in turn are based on the Four Elements (Earth: I, II, III, Water: IV, V, VI, Fire: VII, VIII, IX, Air: X, XI, XII). The selected variations (one per element) were part of a wide encompassing concert programme exploring climate change awareness.

The programme included other works by J.S. Bach, Claude Debussy, Olivier Messian, Toru Takemitsu and others, and will include Antonio Vivaldi's 'Autumn' from The Four Seasons.

The concert was an inniciative of The Early Music Experiment, sponsored by Brook Lyndhurst.

28th of November, 2009: St. Cyprian's, Clarence Gate, London.

The Quinteto de Vento da Real Filharmonia de Galicia will premiere Oscar's 'Suite' for wind quintet (2002), following on the Real Philharmonia de Galicia Orchestra giving two performances in January 2009 of Oscar's award winning piece 'Open the Curtains' under maestro Pablo González.

The quintet, made out of young members of the orchestra will play the 'Suite' alongside works by García-Picos in January, 2010.

13th of January, 2010: Círculo de las Artes , Lugo.

18th of January, 2010: Paraninfo de la Universidad de Compostela , Santiago de Compostela..

German guitarist Jens Franke returns to Oscar's solo guitar music after performing his miniature 'A White Shell' (2005) at Handel House, London, and Reading University.

Jens will give the world premiere of Oscar's 'Litanies on the Collapse of One's Reality' in Handel House, London. Closely linked with the work of artist Albert Corbí, Jens and Oscar collaborated closely in writing this new substantial piece for solo guitar (11' long and dedicated to the German-born guitarist), workshopped it and recorded it in Bilbao Arte Fundazioa in September.

4th of February, 2010, 18.30: Handel House, London.

Oscar assisted guitarist Jens Franke in the edition of his Schott publications 'Romantic Guitar Anthology Vol. 1 & 2'. The anthologies are also available from Amazon.

Oscar has been commissioned by the Schubert Ensemble to write a piano quartet for the 10th Anniversary of their ChamberMusic2000 initiative.

The 3' piece will be written for grade 4-8 level performers, and will be workshoped by the Lawson Trio during Autumn, 2009 and Spring, 2010. The premiere will be given by the young performers in a Gala Concert celebrating the success of the decade-long scheme. The piece will be subsequently published by the British Music Information Centre alongside the works from the other participating composers.

10th of February, 2010, 19.00: Purcell Room, Southbank, London.

Kontakte Percussió, who commissioned and included in their CD Nous Camins Oscar's piece 'Une poupée en Flammes', perform the work again in the Spanish National Percussion Conference held in Badajoz (Spain) from the 18th to the 20th of September, 2009, alongside 'Acute' by Manchester based composer Ricardo Climent.

20th of September, 2009, 11.00: Palacio de Congresos Fernando de Rojas, Badajoz, Spain.

The Burgos Summer Festival, which took place in this historic Castillian city and whose Artistic Director is the renowned conductor Rafael Frübeck de Burgos, commissioned a new string orchestra piece from Òscar for its 10th edition in September, 2009.

'Echo and Narcissus', a five-movement suite for string orchestra, was interspersed in the premiere amongst Henry Purcell's Incidental Music for Abdelazer. The new piece was premiered by the Antares Ensemble, conducted by the young Maestro Eduardo Portal, at present Junior Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, and recently appointed assistant conductor to the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

11th of September, 2009, 20.30: Teatro Principal, Burgos

Oscar has started a book of nocturnes for piano trio inspired by the work of various poets: 'Conversing Memories of Worn-out Wood'. He has so far completed two pieces, commissioned by the Lakeside Trio. 'Crime', based on the poetry of V.A. Estellés and 'Through the Wound', based on a poem written in 1941 by Spanish writer Miguel Hernández.

The pieces can be performed separately, or as a set, and they both have been added to the regular repertoire of the Lakeside Trio, with future performances in Italy and the UK.

Òscar is collaborating with photographer and artist Albert Corbí in developing an installation project based around the idea of humanity desperately attempting to hold the scenery in which it lives, and preventing it from collapsing.

The project first intervention took place between the 31st of August and the 4th of September, 2009 in Bilbao Arte Fundazioa for which Òscar composed a 10' minutes solo guitar piece. 'Litanies on the collapse of one's reality', written for guitarist Jens Franke, was performed and video-taped in the installation space.

Oscar's Award winning score 'Conversations with J. Beuys' was presented publically in the 2009 edition of Valencia's Music of Today, held in the Palau de la Música de València, the 16th of June, 2009 .

Award Winner of Valencia's Music of Today 2008 Festival, 'Conversation with Joseph Beuys', was selected for the festival's annual showcase concert after a nation wide call for scores and was premiered at the Palau de la Música, Valencia, on the 10th of June, 2008. Music of Today is a joint project involving the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE), the Fundación Autor, the Valencian Music Institute (IVM) and the Art's XXI collective. The piece is available from the Valencian publishing house Piles.

Oscar Colomina i Bosch ongoing collaboration with the Cre.Art Ensemble:

Following the premiere in June 2008 of Oscar's new work for chamber orchestra 'Clothes crying slow, dirty tears' (an Aldeburgh Festival commission) he conducted the Cre.Art Ensemble in two successful concerts for the Segovia Summer Festival (giving the Spanish premiere of Zaka, by American composer Jennifer Higdon).

Oscar was welcomed back by the Cre.Art Ensemble for two further concerts in Ávila and in Madrid's Círculo de Bellas Artes on December, 2008. The program included the popular 'Zaka' by Jennifer Higdon, 'Divertimento' by Anders Nilsson and Oscar's own arrangement of Debussy's 'Prélude à l'Après Midi d'un Faune' which was commissioned by the ensemble after their summer tour.

10th of December, 2008, 20.00hrs: Salón de Actos Caja Duero, Ávila.

11th of December, 2008, 19.30hrs: Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid.

I learnt with dispair from a friend that conductor and pianist Alan Hazeldine had finally lost his battle against lung cancer and died on November the 10th, aged sixty.

Alan Hazeldine was born in Glasgow in 1948 and studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and later with Vilem Tausky, Konstantin Iliev and Sergiu Celibidache. Hazeldine pursued excellence in music and had a total commitment to the training and development of young musicians. He led the conducting course at the Guildhall in London for many years. Many young conductors went through his teaching and mentoring, to then enjoy successful careers. Hazeldine was the founder conductor of the North London Chorus, conducting at such venues as St John's, Smith Square and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Perhaps his greatest legacy is the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra, which he founded in 1995.

I had the great privilege of being his student during his last days as professor at the Guildhall. His teaching was the best I have had in conducting skills, and he relentlessly encouraged me and other young students to organise our own concerts and put to practise with our peer students what we were learning. He had the most fine ear and an exacting sense of craftmanship, hard work and a love for musical excellence. He also sported a somehow acid sense of humour, totally characteristic of him, which was so telling about his persona for those who knew him well. There is a number of felicitous lines that will live with me all my live, let alone all the great things I learned from this rather quiet, discrete man.

Only a day before I learnt he had died, I was thinking of getting in touch with him again, as we hadn't seen each other for a long time. I wanted to hear his Scottish accent again murmuring caustic remarks while sharing with him my experiences of my recent conducting engagements. How much I regret not to have done it earlier.

During the two years of lessons we shared he taught me everything I know about conducting, and an awful lot about music and life, too.

Thank you, Alan.