Biography
“I am absolutely convinced that the cellist Iracema de Andrade is one of the best things that has happened to us. I celebrate her presence—always intelligent, warm, and generous—in contemporary musical creation and in the artistic life of our country.”
Iracema de Andrade earned her Doctorate in Music with honors in Musical Performance (Cello) from the Facultad de Música at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), where she was also awarded the “Alfonso Caso” Medal for Academic Merit for her doctoral research on cello repertoire and electroacoustic resources. In England, she completed a Master’s degree at the University of West London and obtained the Fellowship Diploma and the Certificate of Advanced Studies from the London College of Music. In Brazil, she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the Escola de Comunicações e Artes at the Universidade de São Paulo (ECA-USP).
In 2000, she joined the faculty of the Escuela Superior de Música at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (ESM-INBAL), and she is currently a Researcher at the Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información Musical “Carlos Chávez” (CENIDIM). She is also a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte (SNCA) of the Secretaría de Cultura de México and was awarded First Place for Academic Performance in Research 2024 by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura.
“Her musical approach blends electronic sounds with ancestral cultural elements, creating a bridge between tradition and the avant-garde.”
Iracema de Andrade has given numerous contemporary music recitals in major venues in Mexico, Brazil, Canada, the United States, England, Argentina, Cuba, and Scotland, and has performed live on BBC3 in London, Radio UNAM, Opus 94, and Radio Educación, premiering a wide range of new works. Her discography includes solo projects such as Aleaciones (2020), Voces Electroacústicas (2014), and Electro-Acústico (2010), the latter nominated in two categories at the Latin Grammy Awards in 2011. As a creator, she has been selected for artist residencies at institutions such as EMS Elektronmusikstudion (2025), Stockholm, Sweden; HANGAR Music Artistic Research Center (2023), Lisbon, Portugal; Escola Superior de Música de Cataluña (ESMUC, 2019), Barcelona, Spain; Centro Mexicano para la Música y las Artes Sonoras (CMMAS, 2018), Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico; and OMI International Arts Center (2013), Ghent, New York, USA, among others.
Her creative projects have received institutional support on numerous occasions, including from the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte (SNCA), Secretaría de Cultura de México (2023–2026); Programa de Fomento de las Músicas Iberoamericanas – IBERMÚSICAS (2022, 2020); Programa de Fomento a Proyectos y Coinversiones Culturales – FONCA (2020, 2013); Programa Creadores Escénicos con Trayectoria, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (2016–2018); Programa de Apoyo a la Docencia, Investigación y Difusión de las Artes (2013); Programa Creadores Escénicos, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (2011, 2004); and the Programa de Coordinación de Perfeccionamiento del Personal de Nivel Superior (CAPES), Ministry of Education of Brazil (1994).
She has participated in international conferences such as Resonance, 16th SAR International Conference on Artistic Research (2025), Universidad de Oporto, Portugal; The Expansion of Electroacoustic Music in America: Local Influences, Cultural Impact and Global Interactions, Electroacoustic Music Studies Network Conference (EMS 2019), Mexico; Feminist Interventions in the Histories and Archives of Sound Art, 8th International Conference on the Histories of Media Arts (2019), Aalborg University, Denmark; Musicology Applied to the Concert: Studies on Performance in Action (2016), Universidad Internacional de Andalucía, Spain; Women in Music International Symposium (2022, 2020), Universidad de Costa Rica, Costa Rica; and Journées d’Étude: Soixante Ans de Musiques Mixtes (2012), Observatoire Musical Français, Musicologie, Informatique et Nouvelles Technologies, Université Paris-Sorbonne, France.
Iracema de Andrade has given lectures and workshops at institutions such as the Escola Superior de Música de Cataluña (ESMUC), Barcelona, Spain; Concordia University, Montreal, Canada; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA; Centro Mexicano para la Música y las Artes Sonoras (CMMAS), Michoacán, Mexico; Facultad de Música at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (FaM-UNAM); and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, among others. As a promoter of electroacoustic music, she has coordinated projects such as the Seminario Mexicano de Música Electroacústica 2014, organized by CENIDIM–CENART.
Her articles have been published in Cuadernos de Música (UNAM); Pauta: Cuadernos de Teoría y Crítica Musical (INBAL); Ideas Sónicas/Sonic Ideas (CMMAS); Electroacoustic Music Studies, EMS Conference Proceedings; Observatoire Musical Français, Musicologie, Informatique et Nouvelles Technologies (Université de la Sorbonne); Vórtex Music Journal, Escola de Música e Belas Artes da Universidade Estadual do Paraná, Brazil; and Heterofonía (INBAL). She serves as ad-hoc consultant for the journal Entreciencias: Diálogos en la Sociedad del Conocimiento (UNAM) and has acted as a peer reviewer for international refereed journals and conferences such as Organized Sound, International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), and International Conference on the Histories of Media Arts. She has also contributed to the newspaper El Semanario with her column “Música y arte sonoro.”
She is a member of the editorial boards of Sonus Literarum (Mexico), Música Hodie (Brazil), and the Vórtex Music Journal (Brazil). She is part of the faculty of the Doctoral Program in Visual Arts, Performing Arts, and Interdisciplinarity at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, as well as the tutor pool for the Graduate Program in Music at the Facultad de Música of the UNAM. As a researcher, she has developed institutional projects in the fields of Historical Musicology, Performance Practice in Music, and Artistic Research in Music.