Sofía Rocha (b. 1996), an “inventive composer who suggests an ability to honor music’s past while exploring its future” (South Florida Classical Review), writes music of uncompromising emotional intensity while exploring cognition, randomness, movement, and counterpoint through an eclectic set of frameworks. She was the winner of a 2024 ASCAP Morton Gould Award, the 2022 Hermitage Prize at the Aspen Music Festival and a 2022 Copland House Residency Award and has held residences at Macdowell, Avaloch Farm Music Institute and the Hermitage Artist Retreat. Recent and upcoming projects include commissioned works for the International Contemporary Ensemble in collaboration with the New World Symphony, the Emory University Symphony Orchestra, the premiere of Collage d’hommages with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra through the ACO/EarShot program and a collaboration for a new major work for clarinet and live electronics with Gleb Kanasevich.
Sofía’s first orchestral work, Replier, was described as ‘unforgettable’ and evocative of ‘the feeling of being confronted with something unknowably vast’ (The Boston Globe) and as ‘music at its most elemental’ (The Boston Classical Review). She
has also received honors from NATS, the New York Youth Symphony/First Music Commission program, the New England Philharmonic, Earplay New Music Ensemble, Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music Youth Orchestra, OM/NI Composition Competition and Tenebrae New Music Ensemble. She has worked with ensembles including the Arditti Quartet, JACK Quartet, loadbang, Music from Copland House, arx duo, Hub New Music, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, New York Youth Symphony, DeCoda, Fifth House Ensemble, Brentano String Quartet, Castle of our Skins, Transient Canvas, Hypercube, and Duo Entre-Nous, as well as numerous solo performers.
Sofía is currently a PhD student in the Music and Multimedia Composition program at Brown University studying with Wang Lu, Anthony Cheung and Eric Nathan. She received her master’s degree in composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory as a Chancellor’s Scholar and recipient of Elsberry & Gonder Family and Conservatory scholarships. While attending, she studied with Chen Yi, Yotam Haber, Paul Rudy and Zhou Long. Sofía was also the 2019 composer-in-residence for the Graduate Fellowship String Quartet at UMKC. She completed her undergraduate work at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College in 2019 receiving a BA in Music with Honors as a Wagnild Scholar while studying composition with Avner Dorman and conducting with Vimbayi Kaziboni and Russell McCutcheon. Sofía has attended festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, CULTIVATE at Copland House, June in Buffalo, Connecticut Summerfest, Fresh Inc. Festival and Divergent Studio, studying and taking master classes with composers such as Christopher Theofanidis, Augusta Read Thomas, Derek Bermel, Han Lash, Hilda Paredes, Jeffrey Mumford, Alex Temple, Richard Danielpour, Aaron Helgeson, Amy Beth Kirsten, and David Serkin Ludwig, among others. Besides composing, Sofía is also an avid trombonist and conductor, an amateur photographer, and a regular contributor to I CARE IF YOU LISTEN.
Biography
