Santiago Villar

Biography

The Segovian percussionist Santiago Villar (1998- ) develops a wide musical and audiovisual artistic activity around contemporary creation. Musically, he focuses on working directly with composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Daniel Ott, Simon Steen-Andersen, Unsuk Chin, Gibti Kwon, Helena Cánovas, Stylianos Dimou, Alberto Posadas and Thomas Meadowcroft, both solo and in ensemble.

He is currently an academician of Basel Sinfonietta, and collaborates with other orchestras such as Sinfonie Orchester Basel, OSCyL, Collegium Musicum. He is actively involved in the new music scene at festivals such as Duisburg Ruhrtriennale, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Impuls, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Attacca Festival, Festival la Escucha Errante or Festival Internacional de Segovia.

In 2020 he co-founded two contemporary ensembles active on the Swiss and European contemporary scene: ICE 3 Ensemble, dedicated to experimental music for percussion and Ex-Sentia Ensemble, with which he seeks to expand the repertoire for piano, saxophone and percussion trio through audiovisual media. He has also participated in other contemporary medium-sized ensembles, such as Ensemble TMC, TACoS, CUME, Diagonal Ensemble and Ensemble Ibérico de Percusión.

Santiago has obtained professional and bachelor's degrees in Spain and Poland (University of Music
Fryderk Chopin), with the best qualifications, honours, Professional Teaching Award (2016) and End of Degree Award (2021). In 2022 he was awarded an honourable mention in the Certamen Arte Joven (Spain).
In 2022 he received a Master's degree in Performance with a specialisation in Sound Design at the Musik Akademie Basel from Christian Dierstein and Volker Böhm respectively.