Composer, guitarist, musicologist, and teacher, Iván Adriano is a Franco-Mexican artist whose work deeply explores avant-garde music and the many possibilities it offers. In recent years, he has investigated the guitar in all its forms, embracing both the electric and the classical instrument without reservation, presenting his own compositions either directly or alongside the performer in the execution of each piece.
Author of several articles for our journal, in this conversation we will delve into the many facets of his career and reflect on the projects that will shape his artistic future.
Iván, thank you very much for being here with us. Does your constant interest in the guitar have a precise starting point? Do you consider yourself to have been born first as a composer or as a performer?
Thank you for the interview.
My first contact with instrumental practice was the electric guitar. It was this instrument that captured all my attention from the very first time I heard its sound coming out of an amplifier.
As a teenager, I started playing in rock bands, but I quickly lost interest in the ballads that were usually played and began moving toward a more ambitious repertoire. I dedicated a lot of time to it and, while still very young, I performed in concert instrumental pieces such as Erotomania by John Petrucci, Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson, Far Beyond the Sun by Yngwie Malmsteen, Always with Me, Always with You by Joe Satriani, and April Sky by Vinnie Moore. It didn’t take long before I wanted to compose my own works, so I could say that performance and composition were born almost simultaneously. However, without a solid musical training, my resources were limited to imitating the models I played. Some experiences in jazz manouche groups gave me insights into improvisation, and I believe this is what provided me with the tools to begin writing with a certain autonomy.
Later, the need to acquire theoretical knowledge led me to the classical guitar. I did not know this instrument at all, although I was familiar with what we might call “classical” repertoire, since it was constantly played at home. The decisive moment came when I had to choose between one instrument and the other, and since electric guitar was not taught at university, I turned to classical guitar.
Discovering the classical guitar repertoire broadened my sonic perspective and gave me solid technical foundations, but at the same time it limited my possibilities for creating my own music. The hyper-specialization of performer training left no room for composition as a possibility. This was why my interest in contemporary repertoire quickly emerged. On the one hand, certain works demanded a creativity that had formal consequences, sometimes including moments of improvisation; on the other hand, contact with composition students stimulated me through creative exchange. In short, contemporary repertoire allowed me to participate directly in the creative process.
After my studies, I radically distanced myself from the guitar, finding a creative space in interdisciplinary free improvisation ensembles. I explored making music with other instruments and with unusual objects. In doing so, I found a very personal and profound sense of making music, beyond repertoire and scores. Chance led me to theater, working with French companies, where I found myself needing to write in order to formalize certain events and synchronize them with the theatrical text. It was also in theater that I learned the basics of electronics, as during tours I had to work with sound technicians and install sound systems. Little by little, this shaped my current idea of what it means to be a musician: an artist capable of composing, improvising, performing, and even researching and reflecting on their own craft.
Your first guitar piece in your catalogue is Laocoonte (2013), followed by Catastrophe (2016). Do you remember what your first approach to writing a piece was like? What differences do you perceive between the two works, and what needs or motivations led you not to compose in the three-year period between them?
Both Laocoonte and Catastrophe are composition studies in the strict sense, which served me to learn the craft of writing. The first aimed to continue the cycle Douce Études by Heitor Villa-Lobos, focusing on the circular rasgueado technique. Although it is a liminal work, my interest in the idea of flow and contrast of sound masses is already present, beyond the technical possibilities of the instrument. The second, a tribute to Fernando Sor, moves closer to the almost inaudible, subtle, and intimate sonorities that the instrument allows.
Your approach to writing for electric guitar begins in 2018 with Lophius Piscatorius. Did the electric guitar represent a completely new challenge for you? During this creative process, did you encounter difficulties related to sound or technique?
Lophius Piscatorius hybridizes the resources of classical guitar with those of electric guitar. Nothing truly new, either from a sonic or technical point of view. In fact, at that time my conception of the electric guitar sound remained within the sphere of garage rock and heavy metal. In truth, this work exposes all the contradictions the instrument carries, both symbolically and practically, in terms of writing and gestural freedom.
Another work from the same period, Hermissenda Opalescens (2019), for electric guitar, contributes to this exploration but with sonorities closer to acousmatic music, with a strident and “machinistic” approach. The figure of the monster and deformity helped me define the aesthetic of both works. In Hermissenda there is no score, only a formalization on fixed media. The vigorous vitality of instrumental gesture, which allows improvisation, is formalized on the computer, resulting in a digital writing freed from the symbols and graphics of traditional notation.
In any case, the next step in my research was to find a form of writing that would allow the dynamic modification of signal processing techniques and sound synthesis. Timbre has never been a primary compositional concern for me; however, in both pieces it is the conventional timbre of the electric guitar that is questioned, expanding its possibilities through the integration of amplification systems and signal processing via effects pedals.
You later wrote other studies for electric guitar, such as The Sea Dragon Rocket’s Death (2020) and Rhinoceros HC (2021). What drives you to compose short pieces for this instrument? Are they based on programmatic choices or on specific technical indications?
Both pieces are performer studies. I wrote them with a pedagogical aim, as I was trying to train myself in the use of the e-bow and in in situ preparation.
Staying with the electric guitar, the works Grattos of Netanya (2021) and RATP-IT24 (2024) are certainly the pieces to which you have dedicated the most time, considering that the latter reaches twenty minutes in duration. What is the origin and creative process behind these works?
Indeed, these are the two works that in some way synthesize previous processes, at least regarding the electric guitar. Both were dedicated to Samuel Toro Pérez, with whom I have been collaborating for several years. This collaboration has been fundamental, as it has allowed me to better understand the instrument through collective experience.
This pair of works focuses on two contrasting poles regarding the nature of the electric guitar sound. Grattos of Netanya focuses on exteriority, while RATP-IT24 focuses on interiority. As I mentioned before, my compositional work feeds on contrasts, allowing for a panoramic view of possibilities. For Grattos of Netanya, I used a polyphonic writing of up to eight simultaneous voices, as I wanted to move beyond the monodic or homophonic logic that prevails, for organological and cultural reasons, in electric guitar writing. At this stage, I have created a device that allows the spatialization of voices in a multichannel system, focusing on a multidimensional writing that expands the performer’s body beyond the limits of their relationship with the instrument and external devices such as pedals and amplifier. Hence the idea of exteriority.
RATP-IT24, on the other hand, focuses on internal sound, as I intervene directly in the acoustic nature of the string to transform and craft the electroacoustic sound—additive and subtractive synthesis. In this piece, the e-bow is exploited in multiple dimensions, as it is the first tool that allows the transformation of the waveform, creating sounds from basic elements such as a triangular wave, to modulating different levels of distortion obtained by drastically increasing amplitude. Beyond their differing aesthetics, I realize in retrospect that both works share a symbolic element related to the genesis of electric guitar sound.
We know that in many cases you have performed your own works. What changes, in your opinion, when the performer is also the composer? When you entrust your work to another musician, as in the case of your solo pieces performed by Samuel Toro Pérez, what approach do you adopt?
For me, musical creation in its most emancipated state dissolves the boundaries between creation, performance, and improvisation. There is no transformation between the “composer” and “performer” states. Both are part of an immanent creative necessity within the artist’s spirit. The real difficulty lies rather in the social framework through which we represent ourselves and choose to enter one professional circuit or another.
When another performer plays my music, even if it is for another instrument or ensemble, there is a process of reconfiguration between what I imagined and what is realized in the hands of other musicians. There is also a process of discovering new possibilities of writing and performance. My approach is to maintain the necessary distance so that other artists can fully express their creativity. When one of my scores passes into someone else’s hands, I allow myself to be surprised by the creative effort they make to recreate the musical experience.
Samuel is an artist with a very special creativity. He devotes a great deal of time to finding the best solutions to bring the work to its fullest potential. He has developed a virtuosity that is not centered on finger technique on the fretboard, but extends to the operation of different sonic levels. Even though my knowledge of the instrument allows me to define the necessary conditions to reproduce the sound I seek, there is always a dimension that escapes the score. With Samuel, the search continues, expands, and takes on a new, collective meaning. The electric guitar is in a period of historical opening, and the close relationship between composer and performer becomes essential to elevate the instrument to a level that meets the musical needs of our time. The musical experience mediated by the score is not the work of a single individual, but a flow of shared sensitive experiences.
Your catalogue also includes a work for electric guitar and microtonal guitar, a rather unusual combination: the piece is Cromometrofonia-MX24. Can you tell us something about this project?
Cromometrofonia-MX24 is a work written for the Mexican duo Nova Musica Guitar Duo as part of my work as a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte de México. The title is inspired by a term used by the early 20th-century Mexican composer Julián Carrillo, one of the pioneers of microtonality alongside Alois Hába and Ivan Wyschnegradsky. His work was my reference point for composing this piece, as the microtonal guitar I worked with was built based on Carrillo’s instruments. The piece focuses on the acoustic dimension of the guitar and the electroacoustic mediation of the electric guitar. Fundamentally, it seeks to bring both instruments to a point of sonic convergence, revisiting some of my formal concerns, from an intimate, almost inaudible dimension to the amplified expansion of electroacoustic sound in space.
With Tardo vuelo and Canto del oído mal (2019) and Hebius Lacrimae (2020), you move into a chamber music context. How does your work with the guitar change when it is no longer the central solo instrument?
Indeed, I have used both classical and electric guitar in chamber contexts with restraint, as I wanted to focus on other aspects of writing. They function as elements of connection with the electroacoustic imaginary, but more as components of orchestration than as central gravitational forces of the form.
Looking at your career as a whole, you have many years of teaching behind you and continue to balance multiple commitments, with artistic and pedagogical research always at the center of your work. What direction is your career taking today?
This is a decisive moment in my professional career. Teaching at a higher level has given me a different perspective on my own practice, but above all it has allowed me to engage with musical worlds different from my own on a generational level.
In the coming months, the direction I will take in this regard will become clear, but I hope it will be in an environment where artistic creation is the central focus. In any case, the intellectual work I do is not disconnected from musical practice; on the contrary, both complement each other and allow me to maintain the level of autonomy that my creative spirit requires.
Can you tell us something about your future projects?
In the short term, I need to complete a series of works as a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte de México. I will premiere several medium-scale instrumental pieces and one for large ensemble. This will keep me busy for the rest of the year. As a performer, I have a couple of concerts planned promoting works by Latin American composers, but I have decided to limit this activity for the time being. As I mentioned, this is a crucial period in my pedagogical career, as I have been preselected for a position as professor of analysis at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris and, at the same time, I am applying for a full-time professorship at the Sorbonne University. I remain cautious in mentioning this, as I am only at the selection stage and neither opportunity may materialize, but participating in these processes excites me, and I have decided to focus on them in the coming months.
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