bio
Catalina Rueda is a Colombian-Spanish composer, vocalist, and choral conductor based in Hamburg. She studied composition at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre under Manfred Stahnke and Gordon Kampe, earning both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.
Her works have been performed by ensembles such as KNM Berlin, the AsianArt Ensemble, the Duisburg Philharmonic, and the Cologne Vocal Soloists, as well as at the Stuttgart State Opera and the Landestheater Tübingen. They have been featured at festivals including Acht Brücken (Cologne), KNM Contemporaries, and Blurred Edges. Her artistic collaborators include Lisa Pottstock, Jan Wegmann, Kris Kuldkepp, Jeanne Louët, Dalton Harris, and Vittoria Quartararo.
Rueda won second prize in the Acht Brücken Composition Competition and received the Music Theatre Prize from the Reinhold Otto Mayer Foundation for the music theatre piece *Melusine. Was machst du am Samstag?*, developed in collaboration with Lisa Pottstock.
a b o u t ·· m e
I am a Colombian-Spanish composer, singer, and choir director based in Hamburg. My practice is multifaceted.
In my compositional work, I explore the possibilities of tonality and rhythm within a transcultural space. Influences from different cultures flow into my music. I am interested in how sounds relate to one another: when dissonance emerges, when it becomes a color in itself, and when it calls for resolution.
When composing, I search for forms that can give shape to different musical ideas. Music can be a space in which, like a puzzle, many things are allowed to coexist without excluding one another. It can tell a story, convey a feeling, or make an inner, sensory state audible. Sometimes these processes come together; at other times, they lead to different pieces. Music as ritual is also a recurring idea in my compositions. Repetition and pulse play an important role in this.
I work with Jan Wegmann in a shared authorship. Together, we develop pieces combining text, electronics, improvised music, and composition. I sing, write texts, improvise, and play keyboard. Jan plays modular synthesizer and clarinet, works with electronics, and speaks and sings. Our music moves between pop, free improvisation, electronics, alternative, drone, and poetry. Our texts deal with contradictions: the search for an identity of our own, our possibilities for self-expression and development, our dependence on one another, and our capacity to love and to destroy. The tension between freedom and determination also shapes the interplay between composition and improvisation.
In interdisciplinary projects, I collaborate with others to develop concepts for music theatre. Depending on what we want to express together, the role of music also changes. With each concept, the relationship between music, theatre, and text is reinvented. Composed sections are combined with music that emerges through the collaborative process. An important partner in this work is music theatre director and author Lisa Pottstock.
In these projects, I am also interested in the relationships between parallel worlds: between what is said and what is done, between what we consciously express and what we unconsciously feel. These layers are present simultaneously, even when they contradict one another.
The coexistence of different worlds is also part of my own story. My family has experienced several histories of migration, and I myself moved from Colombia to Germany. These experiences also shape my questions about belonging. In the face of growing nationalism, I am concerned with what it means to have a place where one feels a sense of belonging, and with who is allowed to belong there. How does responsibility for one another emerge, even when we do not belong together? I search for ways of allowing differences to exist within a community, while also questioning my own role as an artist.
Together with Lisa Pottstock, I direct a choir. I also sing in the choir and compose and arrange music for the group. Through this shared musical practice, we seek to engage with our political and philosophical questions as well.