Òscar
Colomina
i Bosch
Composer
“A small masterpiece of both musical and dramatic imagination”
— John Adams [Shpigl]
A creative universe where composition dreams sound worlds into being, transforming listening into an act of presence. A poetics of thresholds: temporal landscapes and sonic architectures to be inhabited. A single, organic continuum—a search for a shared humanity grounded in curiosity, vulnerability, and the archetypal power of sound.
VISITACION[e]S
The Styx
Imatges
“A creative universe defined by inspiration, refinement, and depth”
—Justo Romero, Beckmesser [Echo & Narcissus]
Upcoming
News
Shpigl performed in Madrid and Bern
Òscar’s iconic work continues to enjoy a growing performing life
Òscar Colomina i Bosch’s Shpigl for solo violin has received two recent performances in Madrid and Bern, further consolidating the continuing life of the work within the repertoire of young international violinists.
On Monday 1 June 2026, violinist Eduard Kollert performed Shpigl at the Sony Auditorium in Madrid, as part of an academic concert of the Violin Chair of Professor Zakhar Bron at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía.
The work will also be performed by Hyeonyeong Jang on 11 June 2026 at 18:00 at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, continuing the relationship between the piece and a new generation of performers working in leading European music institutions.
Commissioned by the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, with support from the Britten-Pears Foundation, Shpigl was written for the Junior Finals of the 2016 competition and premiered at Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London. Its title means “mirror” in Yiddish, and the work takes as its point of departure Yehudi Menuhin’s idea of life as a journey of search and transformation.
The piece explores this idea through veiled memories of the violin repertoire, elements of improvisation and the theatrical use of space, requiring the performer to shape not only the musical material but also the physical journey of the performance.
Since its premiere, Shpigl has developed a significant performing history. After being heard at the Menuhin Competition, it was described by John Adams as “a small masterpiece of both musical and dramatic imagination” and was later programmed by Adams in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella / Noon to Midnight festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Subsequent performances by young violinists in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Austria, Spain and Switzerland underline the work’s continuing presence as a distinctive contribution to the contemporary solo violin repertoire.
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Orquesta de Extremadura commissions new work
‘Havasu Falls’ will premiere during the OEX 2026–27 season, completing the triptych Myths for orchestra.
The Orquesta de Extremadura has announced the commission and forthcoming world premiere of Havasu Falls, a new orchestral work by Òscar, as part of its 2026–27 season.
Presented under the title Relatos, the new season of the OEX, directed artistically by Roberto Forés Veses, is conceived around the narrative power of music: stories of love and enchantment, fairy tales, journeys, ancient fables and mythical heroes. Within this framework, Havasu Falls will form part of the orchestra’s main symphonic programme and will receive its estreno absoluto during the season.
“The world premiere of Havasu Falls by Óscar Colomina stands out in the main season programme of the orchestra— a piece which will complete his symphonic triptych Myths for orchestra.” — Melómano Digital
Havasu Falls is the third and closing panel of Òscar’s orchestral triptych Myths for orchestra, a cycle in which water appears as a liminal space between life and death, memory and transformation. The cycle began with The Styx, premiered by the Orquestra de València under Baldur Brönnimann at Festival ENSEMS in 2024, and continued with Wells of Oblivion, commissioned and premiered by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife under Ariane Matiakh in April 2026 (links to recordings to both works below).
With Havasu Falls, the cycle moves from the mythological river and the well of forgetfulness towards the image of the waterfall as a living landscape of continuity, ancestry and renewal.
Read more here: Myths for Orchestra.
Press coverage of the OEX 2026–27 season launch:
Docenotas
https://www.docenotas.com/185010/la-orquesta-de-extremadura-presenta-su-temporada-2026-2027/
Scherzo
https://scherzo.es/la-orquesta-de-extremadura-presenta-su-temporada-2026-2027/
Toda la Música
https://www.todalamusica.es/la-orquesta-de-extremadura-presenta-relatos-su-temporada-2026-2027/
Melómano Digital
https://www.melomanodigital.com/una-temporada-llena-de-relatos-para-la-oex/
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Òscar’s ‘Nocturnes’ receive Italian premiere in Bergamo
The piano trio works were performed at Sala Piatti as part of ACHROME Ensemble’s season
On 9 May 2026, ACHROME Ensemble gave the Italian premiere of two pieces from Òscar Colomina i Bosch’s Nocturnes for piano trio at Sala Alfredo Piatti in Bergamo.
The performance took place as part of the tenth edition of ACHROME Ensemble’s contemporary music season “…e adesso musica!”, in a programme titled “Sguardi oltre confine”, dedicated to music looking beyond national and aesthetic borders.
The concert included Rotten Wood and Damaged Iron and Crime, two movements from Colomina’s cycle Nocturnes for piano trio. Written for violin, cello and piano, the works explore a nocturnal world of memory, tension and psychological unease, combining sharply etched instrumental gestures with an atmosphere of fragile lyricism and latent drama.
The programme also included works by Oliver Iredale Searle, Pieralberto Cattaneo, Paolo Coggiola and James Turlow, reflecting ACHROME Ensemble’s continuing commitment to contemporary chamber music and to dialogue between different European musical voices.
‘Wells of Oblivion’ premiered by Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife
Òscar’s new orchestral work first performance under the baton of Ariane Matiakh
On 17 April 2026, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife gave the world premiere of Òscar Colomina i Bosch’s new orchestral work Wells of Oblivion / Los Pozos del Olvido at the Auditorio de Tenerife, conducted by Ariane Matiakh (Melómano article here).
Francisco Campos (Tenerife Week) highlighted the expressive character of the work, noting that in Wells of Oblivion “the sensory prevails over the merely technical.”
Commissioned by the Sinfónica de Tenerife, the work opened a programme that also featured Clara-Jumi Kang as soloist in Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, followed by Liszt’s Hungaria and Kodály’s Dances of Galánta.
Wells of Oblivion forms the second part of Òscar’s orchestral triptych Myths for orchestra, a cycle exploring mythological imaginaries in which water appears as a liminal space between life and death. Conceived as a sequence of symbolic landscapes, the cycle treats rivers, wells and waterfalls as thresholds where memory, identity and temporality are suspended, transformed or renewed.
Following The Styx, premiered by the Orquestra de València under Baldur Brönnimann at Festival ENSEMS in 2024, Wells of Oblivion draws on the Chinese myth of the well of forgetfulness: the place where the soul looks into the waters of oblivion before crossing the threshold into another life.
The triptych will be completed next season with Havasu Falls, commissioned by the Orquesta de Extremadura. The third and closing work of the cycle opens the perspective from boundary and oblivion towards continuity, ancestry and living landscape.
Read more here: Myths for Orchestra.
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DoceNotas: Entrevista al compositor Òscar Colomina i Bosch, ante el estreno de su obra VISITACION[e]S con la ONE
Guadalupe Caballero – 24/11/2025
La Orquesta Nacional de España estrenará VISITACION[e]S, escrita por encargo de la Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (OCNE) los días 28, 29 y 30 de noviembre en el Auditorio Nacional, dentro del séptimo concierto de su Ciclo Sinfónico 2025/26.
Bajo la dirección de David Afkham y con la soprano Jone Martínez como solista, el programa del Ciclo Sinfónico 2025/26 reúne obras de Mahler, Berg y esta partitura que evoca la imagen poética del regreso de lo perdido a través del sueño.
Òscar Colomina es compositor y decano de la Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, galardonado recientemente en el Concurso Internacional de Composición Krzysztof Penderecki–Arboretum.
Con una trayectoria internacional que abarca escenarios como la Wigmore Hall, el Royal Festival Hall o las universidades de Yale y Nueva York, Colomina vuelve ahora al Auditorio Nacional con una obra concebida específicamente para la ONE.
VISITACION[e]S se estrena en un programa que convive con Mahler y Berg. ¿Cómo dialoga su obra con estos compositores y con la atmósfera onírica que atraviesa todo el concierto?
Es una coincidencia muy feliz que David Afkham, antes de conocer la partitura de VISITACION[e]S, decidiera presentarla junto a la música de Mahler y Berg, dos compositores (en especial Mahler) cuya obra ha jugado un rol importante en mi biografía musical, y que siempre he sentido muy cercana a mi sensibilidad. De hecho, VISITACION[e]S contiene un homenaje parcialmente velado a varias obras de Mahler. Tanto él como Berg, exploran un espacio emocional donde la memoria tiene un rol crucial, y VISITACION[e]S hereda algo de esa expresividad que entiende el sonido como vehículo de memoria, de revelación y de tránsito. Creo que la experiencia del concierto revelará una afinidad profunda en la manera de concebir la música como territorio simbólico.
More info: https://www.docenotas.com/181768/entrevista-al-compositor-oscar-colomina-i-bosch-ante-el-estreno-de-su-obra-visitaciones-con-la-one/
Scherzo: ‘La relación de un artista con la creación ha de sustentarse en la libertad, la tolerancia y la autenticidad’
Este viernes, 28 de noviembre, el compositor valenciano Òscar Colomina i Bosch (n. 1977) estrena en el Auditorio Nacional su ciclo VISITACION[e]S para soprano y orquesta. Encargo de la OCNE, tal estreno absoluto formará parte del séptimo Programa Sinfónico (28, 29 y 30 de noviembre) de la Temporada 25/26, codeándose con obras de Mahler y Berg. Actual Decano de la Escuela Superior Reina Sofía, violinista de formación y pedagogo musical de larga trayectoria, Colomina obtuvo en 2023 el Premio de Composición del Concurso Internacional Krzysztof Penderecki ARBORETUM y, desde entonces, no han cesado los encargos —Styx (2024, Orquesta de Valencia); Imatges (III) (2025, Fundación Juan March); Los pozos del olvido/Wells of Oblivion (2026, Sinfónica de Tenerife). Haciendo malabarismos —y mucho taichí, disciplina de la que es consumado practicante— ha conseguido armonizar su exigente carrera de gestor, docente e intérprete con una faceta creativa en la cual instila sus múltiples intereses y ocupaciones. Nos lo cuenta a continuación.
Tengo entendido que es Félix Palomero quien, para su sorpresa, le encarga una obra para voz y orquesta tras descubrir fascinado su música, llegando incluso a advertir resonancias entre su obra y la poesía de Joan Margarit, cuya poesía acabará recalando en la misma…
En una conversación casual hace ya más de dos años, tanto Félix Palomero como David Afkham mostraron su interés en mi música. Tras conocerla más a fondo, David conectó inmediatamente con ella a nivel expresivo y me propuso que escribiera algo para la ONE. Y, efectivamente, en las conversaciones subsecuentes para definir la naturaleza del encargo fue Félix quien —pese a yo tener en mente propuestas puramente instrumentales— identificó con mucha sensibilidad las conexiones entre mis lecturas de poesía china de la dinastía Tang y la de Margarit, y delicadamente me animó a considerar la posibilidad de escribir una obra para voz y orquesta. En ese mismo momento ya sentí que ese era el camino, y enseguida comencé a trabajar e imaginar en esa dirección.
