Anibal Vidal

“The process of approaching [composition], I like to call an intuitive abstract sudoku, where instead of using numbers, I’m working with sound parameters. There is no one way to resolve it; it could be resolved in many [ways], but you will feel when it’s resolved — you will know it intuitively.”

Anibal Vidal

Anibal Vidal is a Chilean composer based in London. His compositional pursuits resonate with both his Latin American heritage and classical training; his creative process blends traditional and unconventional instruments, objects, and the human voice, forming a personal sound palette driven by the physicality of sound and direct experimentation with its source. Anibal recently received the third edition of the Pisar Prize, awarded by The Juilliard School, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Villa Albertine; his compositions have been performed by groups such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Quatuor Bozzini, Mise-En ensemble, Musicians Initiative Orchestra, Orquesta de Cámara de Valdivia, and Britten Sinfonia as one of their 2024 Magnum Opus composers. His debut album Cuerdas y Rugidos was released in collaboration with the Brompton and Alkyona quartets, along with José Luis Urquieta and ensamble f(r)actura. Anibal holds a Masters degree in Composition and Artist Diploma from the Royal College of Music.

Anibal’s recent large-scale choral work, ‘Theatre of Origins’, was commissioned by The Carice Singers and Spitalfields Music, and will be premiered at Spitalfields Festival on 1st July 2025. Ahead of the premiere, we spoke with Anibal to discuss handheld instruments, human voice, balance, play, and composition as an “intuitive abstract sudoku”…

Zyggy/PRXLUDES: Your new large-scale work for The Carice Singers, ‘Theatre of Origins’, is premiering on 1st July as part of Spitalfields Music Festival. I understand the piece explored creation myths from different mythologies — tell me about how the work was conceived?

Anibal Vidal: It all started when I read the poem Genesis by the English poet, Geoffrey Hill. What I loved about it was his portrayal of “creation”, but with a more violent description — as if saying that the creation of earth and paradise comes with a price— which makes the Creation of the Bible [look] very sugarcoated. -laughs- And I was like, of course it was like this; of course there was a lot of blood spilled, forging all of this geography took a lot of destruction… I was so attracted by the idea of a sound depiction of this. Aiming to depict that in a way that is not “biblical”, but in a more dramatic way — in the storytelling of how all of the things and elements were being created — from the nothingness, to the explosion, and the subsequent formation of earth. That’s a fruitful terrain for music.

That was the first idea. Then I approached George [Parris] — the artistic director of The Carice Singers — and he really liked it, but I told him I didn’t have a writer. And he recommended Tom Lowen, who’s the bass of The Carice Singers! The first time we met, we clicked immediately. We had the same aesthetic vision of it; he had also read the poem, and was very enthusiastic about it. He writes poetry, but this will be his first collaboration [as a librettist].

That’s amazing — I didn’t realise the librettist was also one of the singers! So how did yourself and Tom explore these ideas of creation myths?

So he came up with this big draft, from the point of “initial creation” to the “flood myth”, of different cultures. I was interested [in] this, from a thematic point of view, because I’ve always been amazed how many different cultures in different geographical locations, and different moments in time, have come [up] with similar stories about the creation of the world. How did that happen? Many share the “primordial chaos”, many share the primordial “couple” — Adam and Eve — many have the “flood” myth, many have a big snake, or titan… So I [thought] it would be nice, for the sake of drama, to put this into one big story. And Tom came up with a very, very nice libretto.

How did you approach setting this text musically — and what has your collaboration with The Carice Singers looked like throughout the process?

I’m very lucky to be working with The Carice Singers, and I feel very comfortable working with them. I already collaborated with them [before], and I know how open they are to try things; I think they motivate composers to do so. They give you really good feedback — and that, for a composer, is so useful. George has given me free ground to experiment here; he’s been so helpful. There hasn’t been a moment where he’s said “maybe not that”… If he has any concern, he would say “leave it like that, we will see in the rehearsal” — which for a composer, is great.

It’s such a big topic — an epic about creation. You cannot get bigger than that, in terms of a theme, I think. -laughs- I was going to need a sound palette that is “bigger” than just human voices, because it’s a long-scale work — like, 25-30 minutes — [so] you need to keep the ear fresh. So I needed to incorporate sounds that could make distinctive, different sections. I had collected all of these handheld instruments — and I was like “okay, they have their hands free — I’m going to make them use their hands”.

So you’re making The Carice Singers use these handheld instruments while singing… How did that come about for you, and how are you navigating that on a practical level?

Each singer will have a set of instruments; they [will] not perform just one, they’ll have at least three or four. But these are not “traditional” instruments — not a violin, not a flute — these are basically toy instruments, or mundane objects; they are very straightforward to play. If I can do it, of course they can do it, you know? -laughs- I’m not a professional performer, and they have more experience than me performing. I’ve been reading their parts as much as I can, to keep track of how much stamina I’ll have as a singer — especially when performing physical actions — or how much time I need to allow for them to pick up an instrument and play it between vocal passages.

Basically, it’s instruments like this one, a “frog buzzer” — it has many different sounds. Or spring drum, or the whirly tubes, you know? You can see that it’s things that are very approachable to perform, where you don’t need any training. Also, I’m including video instructions of how to perform all of these instruments; so it’s easier for them to approach them.

Tell me a bit about your musical upbringing, growing up in Chile. What were your earliest experiences of music, and what was there any particular impetus that got you to start thinking about writing music?

I don’t remember any “one” particular moment. It was a period of time when I was 8 or 9; I started listening to Nirvana, or Los Prisioneros in Chile — and of course The Beatles. And I remember not only enjoying the music, but having this very powerful need, necessity, to do the same. It wasn’t that I only enjoyed this; I have to do this, as well. When I discovered Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, Caetano Veloso, it increased that need more.

I started playing guitar — all of my training has been [in] popular music. Until I graduated from my Bachelor’s, I mainly studied jazz guitar, pop guitar; and it wasn’t until I was doing my dissertation, at the very last year of university — this is me being 24 — that one of my composition professors, who had classical training, introduced me to Gerard Grisey and Fausto Romitelli. And I remember, so vividly, when he introduced me [to] ‘Partiels’… He was showing it to a whole class, and I was in shock — “What is this, why does it sound like that? This doesn’t have standard tuning…” — it filled all of my curiosity to discover what that is. I was, like, experiencing the same sensation as if I was [on] an LSD trip… I was so in shock that I had to go out of the classroom to a hallway to just to calm [down] a little bit. It was such an illuminating moment that it changed my whole career.

And now I’m composing — but it feels the same [as] composing songs. The mechanisms are very similar. Since I started playing guitar, I don’t remember any road trip with my parents where I’m not in the back, thinking of how to fill the lyrics of a melody I was creating. And now it’s the same; whenever I’m in [a] queue, in the airport, walking, I’m thinking about the structural parts of my compositions, some sort of system — whatever development that I want to do. I love composing; it hasn’t left my mind since I was 8.

I’ve always felt an affinity to composers from backgrounds outside of classical music — not just because I am one, but also because we have a musical perspective that’s focused outside of the “classical canon”. Do you feel like your influences from pop and rock music has impacted your compositional aesthetic, somehow?

I don’t know if “aesthetics” influenced [me]. I remember in the beginning, when I started composing classical; for me, it was like another compartment of my brain — apart from popular music. Really, I started heavy metal with Boulez… -laughs- My first composition tutor showed me Boulez — and Boulez is so different from any tonal or formal strcutures of popular music.

In the university where I studied [in Chile], everything I learned from music was without a dogma or narrow judgement from the “other side”. Maybe now it doesn’t happen that much, but there was a while where (for example) jazz performers really liked to talk shit about classical music — and classical music [was] the same with jazz performers. I was really lucky, in my Bachelor’s, that I had classical music professors, jazz professors, pop professors, studio engineer professors… That really made me learn to see a wide scope of music possibilities, free of any type of judgement. I think at this moment, it’s also reaching in[to] aesthetics. I’ve also been a film composer — and all of my film soundtracks, TV series soundtracks, have been very separated from my concert music. Like, composers such as Philip Glass, Max Richter or Morricone — their film music is the same as their concert music. I was never able to include that in the same “bowl”.

At some point, at the end of my Masters in the Royal College of Music, I really wanted to expand my compositional voice, but I didn’t know how… I had always collected little instruments, like the ones I’ve just shown you, to sample them for film soundtracks. So suddenly, I looked at all these instruments that I had at home, and started to incorporate them into my music.

What do you feel like adding these sounds from handheld instruments added to your compositional outlook?

On one hand, I love the freshness that it adds to my sound palette. And on the other hand, I love the theatricality of it — when it’s performed live. The music that I compose is mainly to be experienced in live performances — like a one-off experience, like if you went to the theatre or to the cinema. Therefore, when you go to a concert, the visual component is so important — and even distracting from the music itself, as well. But I love the idea of performers using these instruments; having to do different actions, that are not the expected traditional ones, in order to produce sound. I think that’s very theatrical. In a way, performers are also actors, because they are doing actions on a stage. I love when I’m in the audience, and I hear something but I don’t know where it comes from — “where is that sound coming from?” — and I start looking [over] the whole orchestra until I find the person who is doing that sound. And I love that the composer would have those “add-ons” in the performance for us, as audience, to enjoy.

I get this — asking performers to do things outside of purely “instrumental” techniques. Does the human voice fit into this for you, as well?

Definitely! The human voice also fits into this category of things I have at hand, at home. Probably, if I was classically trained — like a cello player, a trumpet player, a clarinet player — I think I would be writing much more complex music. I really need that contact with the source of sound as I’m composing; I need to feel it, I need to touch it, to see the different nuances that it has. And it’s the same with the voice.

The voice is the most powerful tool to express emotions that we have — by far. It’s so intimately connected to our physical and emotional states. It has so many subtle variations in tone, in pitch, in rhythms, and nuances; and all of that creates our personal identity. And therefore [it] puts us in a vulnerable place. I like that because it’s as expressive as you can get — and adding that to music adds a more powerful expressive layer in the composition.

When was the first time you used these handheld instruments in your compositions — and were there any challenges that came up when you first utilised these instruments in your work?

The first piece was ‘Tonada’ — a piece for ensemble of six performers: piano, percussion, flute, clarinet, violin, cello. That was commissioned by four ensembles in Europe — Divertimento Ensemble, Cikada Ensemble in Norway, Ensemble U in Estonia, and Taller Sonoro in Seville. It’s also been performed in New York by Mise-En Ensemble. It’s my piece that’s been performed the the most… That’s why I think I have a particular love for that piece.

As you start using these instruments, and incorporating them into the performance, you start learning how to give the best instructions for the performers so they can get what you want, as well. It’s not that straightforward: if you’re using toy instruments — for example, like a slide whistle — there are many, many different slide whistles of different brands; [and] some are more professional than others. Therefore, you cannot be that precise, because each slide whistle of each different brand will have different sonority. You have to be as “general” as you can in the instructions, in a way, so you can let the performers do their part. And also, keep[ing] in mind that as a performer, you need to put your instrument aside, to take this other instrument — so let them have a few bars of rest for them to do these things, and feeling comfortable doing it as well.

I understand you also used these techniques in your concerto for Britten Sinfonia’s Magnum Opus scheme — ‘Invocacion no. 2: A Kintsugi Resurrection’ — which premiered last year in London…

‘Invocacion no. 2’ was the second piece! My learning piece was ‘Tonada’; then ‘Invocacion no. 2’ was “okay, now that I’ve learned a few things about this, I can correct some — and really exaggerate some others”. I really pushed it even more [for] that one — and I think I’m pushing it even more for The Carice Singers.

And then I started buzzing with the air pump and with the hose; and I discovered that if I whirl the hose in the air, it creates this effect… I was like “wow, this is a cool sound” — I need to give it a very protagonist moment. -laughs-

When I watched it, I felt the placement of that moment around the quite “conventional” musical material was really powerful; that juxtaposition between “silly” and “serious” elements.

I think that’s also important for me, what you’re saying. As a composer, when you experiment and push with many different music parameters at the same time — more than one parameter — you make it harder for audiences to assimilate what you’re doing with [the] music. If you have very complex rhythms, with very complex harmony, it will be hard to grasp the thing; but if you have a sense of pulse with complex harmony, you’re making it a little more “gentle” to assimilate — and also, vice versa.

Because I’m experimenting a lot with colour in my music, I started to convey a harmonic language that could be more “approachable” for the listener, in a way — and then I push with the colours. An example of that is the moment you were referring to. I had the whole ensemble doing major chords, but there was this other colour element that sounded out of place; but the element was singing a very tonal melody. At least for me, I like to “push” with one parameter, and keep the other[s] familiar. Of course, not in the whole piece — sometimes I’m really pushing with everything, that’s the balance in the drama of the piece — but as much as I can, I want to maintain something familiar, and push with something else.

It allows the audience to focus on the musical element you’re pushing, right? You’re able to direct the listener’s ear a lot more.

Yeah, exactly. I’m really not talking about liking it. I’m talking about assimilating the elements that are presented to you in the concert. It’s so hard to assimilate when everything is being so complex, all the time. Of course, I love those dense moments too, like in a lot of the music of the second part of the last century — but it cannot be that all the time. At least for me.

I guess it’s about finding that balance, right?

Of course, of course. Composition is all about that.

Another notable recent work of yours was your orchestral work ‘Thus Dreamt the Anthems’ — which was premiered earlier this year in Singapore…

It’s called the Musicians Initiative Orchestra — that’s directed by Alvin Arumugam. It’s an orchestra he founded ten years ago, and he’s done incredibly well in Singapore; it has its own audience. It was such a good time in Singapore.

I understand the musical material for ‘Thus Dreamt the Anthems’ was deconstructing a lot of national anthems and patriotic songs of the past. How did the role of cultural memory of works such as these factor into composing this work?

Discursively, I’m very interested in quoting classical repertoire, or popular repertoire — as well as incorporating extramusical elements — because for me, it’s a way of engaging with the broader aspects of society, of interacting with society itself. It allows me to explore connections between my music and the cultural context in which it exists — in which I’m creating it in. For example, if I quote the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, or if I quote the soundtrack of Mario Kart, those elements have a concrete weight in cultural significance. They have a symbolic meaning; and so, it allows me to transcend pure abstraction. When I have these icons, I’m telling the audience “look, this is not pure abstraction: this is a tangible element, you know what it is” — and then, I can dress it up with all of my music[al] aesthetics, and therefore creating a counterpoint. And I can make an interaction, or a conversation, between these elements with my soundscapes. That’s why I’m interested in working with that, because I can connect directly with culture, and with society.

I understand that. Why did you choose anthems in particular for this piece — and how did you play with those materials, as points of reference?

I was interested in using these anthems because — in these times especially — we can really experience that progress and social change are really cyclical and fragile. I think social protest songs, or “anthems” are a good way to portray that phenomenon, because these songs — protest songs, anthems — are cultural artefacts that carry the weight of this cycle of repetition of social progress. Therefore, I’m not interested in portraying them in a very “triumphant” way, like a symbol of “we made it”. I rather like to imagine them being portrayed in a place where they are resting in this ethereal state — like echoes of a dream land, where they are waiting, ready to be used again.

When they were created, when they were sung for the first time, they had their purpose; but time changes [things]. And those pieces, that once were created with very good heart, were later used by their opponents to go against them. For example, I included the La Marseillaise — the national anthem of France — because it was such a big symbol of freedom in France; but then the African colonies of the French empire used the same anthem to liberate themselves from the French! From being oppressed by the same people who advocated for freedom just a few centuries ago. So I’m interested [in] how that cultural artefact transcend[ed] the people who wrote it; it becomes an icon by itself.

The other piece that I’m quoting is ‘This Land is Your Land’, by Woody Guthrie in the United States — who I think was a communist. It was to portray the social inequalities after the Great Depression, the ’29 crisis — it was created with a good heart — but later generations are revising the lyrics. And actually, it was taken as a white man’s oppressing [of] the native people of America, because it portrays the white man taking the land — and it suddenly became a patriotic and nationalistic song that is associated with the Republicans. So you see how these things change in time? My whole point is that there is no “final victory”. This will be a continuous cycle of change — that’s the whole point. That’s why I portrayed these anthems in this state — of continuous flux and transition.

I’ve sometimes felt hesitant engaging with deconstructions of such themes in that kind of “postmodern” way in my own work. I’ve found it can easily become a process of deconstruction for its own sake, where nothing means anything…

Where everything can be recontextualised — to fit whatever discourse you want to have. For me, it’s a way to reflect [on] what that says about the struggles these anthems once embodied. How would it feel for the progress[ive] movement in the 30s, in the United States, that that song is embodied by the Republicans? These anthems, the significance the have now… For me, it’s a question: are they echoes of the past, or are they something unfinished — to do? Is it resolved or not? Of course [for me], the answer is no, and they will never be.

I find that interesting — the question of whether they’re unfinished — and then how that reflects on our own values. Don’t you feel like revisiting these works in this way might further contribute to their lack of resolution…?

That’s exactly one of the points. The idea of a final resolution is wrong; the nature of things is to mutate in time beyond our power. For me, whatever realisation about society you can have at this moment — this is what we will be, now — it will change in ten, twenty years. I’m a person that prefers accepting that I don’t know. If I had the thought “okay, now we are this”, that would be only momentary. There is no such thing for me, things evolve. For this piece, I was interested in this image of all of these anthems: where do they go after the movement is gone? Where do they stay in the collective memory? And as years pass, how does their significance mutate?

It’s more from a point of view of research, I think. One of my first ideas was when I found out about La Marseillaise, how it was used against the French empire. These things can mutate in time. I’m not aiming to create any noise with this. It’s a very personal reflection on this process.

How do you perceive the physical act of composition — whether you’re working with the voice, handheld instruments, different musical sources?

That, for me, would be something secondary — to think of the instruments. For me, when I’m about to compose: firstly, there must be a will that needs to be expressed — there is a will to express something. An energy that you have inside, that you want to put out in the world; an authentic need to confess something, to clarify myself. There is a curiosity to know who I am through that music. That’s the first thing. And then I start my exploration: okay, with which tools can I convey that emotion, energy — not even a “message”, I think it’s just an energy, an emotion — the best?

I think when you compose… I don’t know how you feel, but for me, the process of composition [is] like resolving a problem within yourself. And that has many layers. I treat composition like a football match… -laughs- When I’m starting a new section, I’m very stimulated, and I have a lot of motivation; but if things get stuck, and that’s how I’m finishing the day, I will go to bed sad. But if I manage to finish it, or find the material, it’s all fireworks for me, you know? It’s [so] problematic that it takes all your dimensions of being — like your daily routine — but also things more abstract inside you; as if, through composing, I also resolve my life. The process of approaching that, I like to call an intuitive abstract sudoku, where instead of using numbers, I’m working with sound parameters. There is no one way to resolve it; it could be resolved in many [ways], but you will feel when it’s resolved — you will know it intuitively.

And how do you get to that result? It’s all about balancing things. For me, it’s all about calibrating; how unpredictable [or] predictable you are at some points, how much you want to hide from the audience, how much you want to reveal, and at what point in the composition. How much you want to stretch the thread of tension for the composition, and how long you release. That’s the main arc of composition, for me. And then comes the instruments, the aesthetics, whatever system you may have. But that’s the big scheme of composition, that I think applies to all of the arts that happen within time; like theatre, or cinema.

There does really seem to be a kind of childlike play in that — playing with how long to hold something, playing with when and how to release…

You know when you have your figurine toys, when you were a kid — and you’re making stories with your toys, and whatever thing you’re doing? I was always so immersed into that; I would love playing with my toys, and mak[ing] stories with them. And my stories would last months — I would come back from school, and I would continue the same thing where I left them, and the same the next day. I remember what attracted me [to] it was the storytelling: not only in the sense of a literal “story”, but how you are calibrating the tension and release of what you are doing. Then when I started playing guitar, it was the same; instead of using stories with my toys, I’m using music to control tension and release.

I like the playful aspect of it. Not in a “childlike” way… But I let myself get in a state to experiment, hopefully free from any judgement — of whatever you may have in your mind. It’s like when you’re a kid, playing with your toys, and you’re so immersed into that world that the world of the adults seems like a world that’s interrupting you. That is the same for me when I’m composing. I like to recreate that act of playfulness.

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Anibal Vidal’s ‘Theatre of Origins’, commissioned by The Carice Singers and Spitalfields Music, premieres on 1st July 2025 at Spitalfields Music Festival – learn more and book tickets at:

• https://spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk/events/a-celebration-of-the-voice/

Stream and download Anibal’s debut album, Cuerdas y Rugidos, on Sello Modular:

• https://sellomodular.bandcamp.com/album/cuerdas-y-rugidos

Learn more about Anibal and his practice:

• https://www.anibalvidalmusic.com/
• https://soundcloud.com/anibal-vidal-composer
• https://www.instagram.com/anibal.vidal.a/

References/Links:

• Geoffrey Hill – Genesis (1953), read by Geoffrey Hill
• Ana Maria Sanhueza, ‘The story of how Los Prisioneros managed to outwit Pinochet’s dictatorship with their first two albums’ (2024), El País. Translated from Spanish.
• Jonathan Blitzer, ‘How Caetano Veloso Revolutionized Brazil’s Sound and Spirit’ (2022), New Yorker
• Gerard Grisey – ‘Partiels’ (1975)
• Beethoven – Symphony No. 9 (1824)
• Kenta Nagata and Shinobu Tanaka – soundtrack to Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (2003)
• Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle – La Marseillaise (1792)
• Raoul Manuel Palm, ‘A Hymn for the Citizens of Color. Parody-Song, the French Revolution, and the Abolition of Slavery’ (2024), Perspectivas Afro: 3(2)
• Woody Guthrie – ‘This Land Is Your Land’ (1940)
• Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, ‘The Blind Spot In The Great American Protest Song’ (2021), NPR