Bio
[for a short bio, click here]
Francisco del Pino is a composer and guitarist with an affinity for music that is meticulous, expressive and patient. Drawing influence from both classical and vernacular traditions, his work revolves around process and pattern and is usually characterized by an extensive use of counterpoint. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Francisco is currently based in Princeton, NJ, where he is a doctoral student in composition at Princeton University.
His debut album Decir, a song cycle on texts by Argentinian poet Victoria Cóccaro, was released on New Amsterdam Records in 2021. Of the album, Bandcamp Daily says: “Francisco del Pino (…) achieves a stunning art-song hybrid (…). The album’s sheer beauty leaves a deep, lasting impression that only grows more resonant as the small details emerge from the meditative din.”
Francisco’s music has been featured worldwide at venues and festivals such as MATA, ISCM World Music Days in Tongyeong (South Korea), St John’s Smith Square (London), Summartónar (Faroe Islands), Druskomanija (Lithuania), Guitarras del Mundo and CETC Teatro Colón (Argentina). He has worked with ensembles such as Contemporaneous, loadbang, ICE and Sō Percussion, as well as with soloists like soprano Charlotte Mundy, percussionist Ayano Kataoka, and many others. Commissions came from Ithaca College, the Argentinian Ministry of Culture, TACEC (Teatro Argentino de La Plata), the Tuba-Euphonium Social Justice Initiative and guitarist Nicolò Spera, among others.
Francisco is a winner of the first International Jean Sibelius Composition Competition, where his piece Jardín de lágrimas, awarded by a world-class jury chaired by Kaija Saariaho, was a compulsory piece for the 2015 edition of the Sibelius Violin Competition. Further honors include first prizes at international composition competitions in Paris (Viola’s 2014 Composition Contest, AFEA), Antwerp (Sorodha Composition Competition, 2014) and Moscow (Tchaikovsky Conservatory Composition Competition, 2013).
As a chamber musician, Francisco has performed his own and others’ music alongside Dither, ICE’s Ensemble Evolution, ~Nois, Sō Percussion and multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Võ, among many others. He currently leads alba par, a song-oriented project navigating the crossroads between the medieval and renaissance chanson and contemporary genres.
An avid educator, Francisco taught counterpoint, music notation and composition at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes in Argentina before relocating to the US. He holds a BAMus from the Universidad Nacional de las Artes (Argentina) and an MFA from Princeton University, where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Music Department as a Mark Nelson Fellow and a fellow in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in the Humanities.
“Francisco del Pino’s Un pez dorado used the uniform timbre of a clarinet quartet to perfection, creating gentle polyphonies and using dissonant sound beats to build complex rhythms. It was lucid, entrancing music perfect for the intimate National Sawdust venue.”
“del Pino’s vision is ethereal, yet heavy, distinguished, yet humble—and always beautiful.”
“Francisco del Pino […] achieves a stunning art-song hybrid […]. The album’s sheer beauty leaves a deep, lasting impression that only grows more resonant as the small details emerge from the meditative din.”
“Elegant, utterly new but highly expressive”
“From the solitude of [Victoria Cóccaro’s] desk to the grandiose amplification of the ensemble, the writing finds resonances in the concrete materials of the building (cement, sheet metal, iron), it detaches itself from the self first person and makes a monumental leap towards the landscape.”