Latin American Electroacoustic Music Collection

Andrea Pensado (Argentina)


Andrea Pensado (born in La Plata, 1965) has been composing with electrocoustic medias and performing using live interactive musical systems.

Pensado studied Musical Education at the National University of La Plata in Argentina. Then she moved in 1987 to Poland to study at the Cracow Academy of Music, where she graduated in choral conducting in 1992 and composition in 1995 after having studied with Barbara Buczek and Boguslaw Schaeffer. There she studied also computer music with Marek Choloniewski. During 1997 Pensado came back to Buenos Aires and during 1998 co-founded an interdisciplinary duo ("Qfwfq") with Gregory Kowalski (images). Since 2002 Pensado and Kowalski live in Salem, United States, and at the moment they concentrate in the search of relevant parameters for performance, articulated through new gestures and means (as for example: different type of sensors).

Among other pieces she composed: "Desencuentros" for piano and live-electronics in 1993; "CIØAV" for computer, 3 percussionists, voice and live-electronics, with 8 channels spatialization digitally controlled in real time, in 1994; "Ostatni sen karalucha (El último sueño de una cucaracha)" for tape in 1994; "Al rumga" for trombone, voice and live- electronics in 1995; "¿Nsmentrí?" for bass clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet, violoncello, double bass, and tape in 1997; "¡Dale que va!" for bass clarinet and real time digital sound processing with MAX/MSP in 2002.

Pensado also works with live computer based interactive audiovisual systems, in collaboration with Greg Kowalski, as "QfwfQ" duo. They often work in collaboration with solo performers . Among other works they created: "Paulinska 28", sound and images project for bass clarinet (with live-electronics), in 1998; "Delirium is a disease of the night" for soprano saxophone, live electronics (Max controlling DSP in real time) and Xpose, and "Carcajadas Ajadas III" for piano and accessory instruments, voice, live electronics and images (interactive), both in 1999; "The Blue Smoke Producing Factory" for two Mac computers (one running the software Image/ine and the other with Max/MSP), actor, light sensors (I-Cube system) and performer, between 1999 and 2000 (the performer processes his own image with his voice and also generates and processes sounds and images with an instrument built with 2 light sensors); "Vox ex Machina" for voice and movements, installation with light sensors and two computers (Image/ ine and Max/MSP), in 2000; "ABX", based on "The Seven Sermons of the Dead" by Carl Gustav Jung, for two performers in two interactive zones of light sensors, in 2001; "Event 1", where movements of lights held by the performers trigger/modulate sounds and images in real time, in 2002.

(text updated: October, 2003)

Resources available for this composer:
- List of compositions (8 compositions)

Index: