Luis M. Ruelas Romo (b. 1992), young emerging Mexican composer, whose voice bridges the gap between contemporary language and the folkloric idiom. His works have been premiered in both the US and Mexico, instrumentation ranging from solo piano, suite for cello and guitar, various forms of chamber ensembles, vocal works, all the way to string and chamber orchestra.

 

Winner of the 2021 Young Creators Grant (Beca Jóvenes Creadores) from the Mexican National Endowment for Culture and Arts (FONCA), he was also a scholarship recipient from the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation in 2016 and 2017. Winner of the 2017 OperaMaya International Composition Competition, Luis was a finalist that same year of the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. In 2015 he was awarded Honorary Mention at the 63rd BMI Student Composer Awards. In 2013, he was a finalist in the International Music Composition Contest carried out by Don Quixote Iconographic Museum for the renowned Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico.

 

Past projects include Luis’s collaboration with the Boston-based Unitas Ensemble in the premier of his commissioned work Resilience: Music for Thirteen Musicians; working with American oboist Sara Rener, who commissioned the work for solo oboe

Capri 204 for the CD release of the album Oboe Unfolded; as well as working with Boston-based Mexican guitarist Zaira Meneses who commissioned him the suite for guitar Suite Latinoamericana.

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An active educator, Luis founded TALLER COMP, a composition workshop for beginner students in his native Mexico, in June 2013. With a focus on social activism, this workshop aims to expand and revolutionize the contemporary music field in Mexico while providing a network of support and encouragement for young musicians and music lovers.

 

Luis is currently a faculty member at Arkansas State University Campus Querétaro, having obtained his Master of Music in Composition at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, studying with Don Freund and Claude Baker. He earned his Bachelor of Music in Composition at the New England Conservatory in Boston, MA studying with both John Mallia and Stratis Minakakis. Previously, he also attended the Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan in 2010, majoring in composition.