Tao Mijares

Composer

USA

Author

About

Music is the most ethereal and spiritual of all the fine arts. Work with sounds, as an art-music composer, is working with the most subtle of all the substances: Sounds and silence.

Tao Mijares was born in Monterrey, Mexico. He begins his musical studies at six years old. At twelve he assists at the National Conservatory of Music of the Institute of Fine Arts. At age seventeen he obtains a scholarship for further studies in the Conservatory of Warsaw in Poland under the counseling of Professor W. Kotoñski. In 1985 carried out studies of piano performing improvement in Paris. In 1988 carried out composition course with Professor Leo Brower. In 1989 obtains a scholarship from the Council of Fine Arts of Detroit in order to take a course of Jazz music with Professor Juan Mora. He has carried out studies of electroacoustic music with famous experts like Arturo Salinas. He has carried out diverse musical productions for WEA, (co-production) with Memo Mendez Guiú, for Sony, with José A. Farías, among others. He has carried out the music for diverse multimedia shows, some of them with the presence of the president of México Dr. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce of León, as well as in diverse advertisings campaigns inside and outside the country. In 1997 he collaborated in some musical independent productions in Spain. He has carried out music for documentaries for television and music for national video homes He has composed, produced or directed, among others, the following: MUSIC THEMES • Music theme of the Cervantino Festival in Monterrey. • Music main theme for the Beauty Contest Miss Nuevo León. • Musical theme for the National College Olympics Games. • Music for diverse programs of the educational state television broadcasting system. • Music for the ceremony of the delivery of the medal to the Civic Achievement -6 yearly editions in a raw. • Official theme for the Santa Lucia Monterrey City Festival -4 years in a row. • Music for nature documental programs about some Mexican National Parks. • Music for the national release of the Jalisco News Paper “MURAL” • Sport Anthems (“Dorados de Chihuahua”, “Alacranes de Durango” and Deportivo Albacete” in Castilla la Mancha, Spain, among others) • Music for the International CONACEX Congress. • Music for the 7th National Architectural Biennale. • Official Musical Theme for “LA GRAN FAMILIA” –ONG- • Music for the documentary on the CEMEX Bangladesh Plant • Music for the Christmas Parade in Nuevo León, -Five years in a row. • Music for the Musical “The History of Christmas” • Music for the TV Show “Transforma-T” -Televisa- Eight years in a row. • Music for the Christmas Fireworks Show “Music & Fire” • Music for the opening of the Santa Lucia Christmas Parade • Music for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities 25 Anniversary • Music for the Texas Migrant Council 40th Anniversary presentation. CD PRODUCTIONS • Gaviotas, MCM/ Warner • Sor Inés, Un Rayo de Sol /Sony Music • Acoplado MULTIMEDIOS • QUIERO CANTAR Arquidiócesis de Monterrey, /Tao Producciones • CINCO ESTAMPAS NORESTENSES, Editado por la S.R.E. • Poema Sinfónico LOS VIAJES DE QUETZALCÓATL, Editado por la AMEI • Lore Lore / Tao Producciones • Reflexiones, Olga Nelly Garza,/ Tao Producciones • Carlos Gómez “El Hombre y la Estrella” /Tao Producciones • 4X4 “Ella es” Tao Producciones/ Pacific Music, Los Ángeles, Calif. • Denisse “La Luna y Tu”, Tao Producciones/ Pacific Music • EL CD de ¿CÓMO DIJO? Con Ricardo Espinosa/Tao Producciones • OMNIA “¿Qué se siente?”/Nopal Records/ Universal • Los Cuentos de la Ardilla y el Señor Colibrí/Tao Producciones / Font Ediciones. • EL PUENTE “CONTACTO” • “POR UN AMOR” Gloria Alcázar, THE DIVA. STAGING PRODUCTIONS • Bandamax Tour, Plaza de Toros, Monterrey. • Festival 72nd Anniversary of the U.A.N.L. Main Building esplanade, September. • UNI-ton pro-University Hospital, Main Building esplanade. • Production and general artistic concept of the media show for the opening of the Flag Point View Plaza in Monterrey • Production and general concept for the Nochebuenas Parade in Monterrey and other cities, -Four years in a row- • Production and general concept for the Multimedia show “The History of the Christmas” based on a short story by Tao. • General Production of “TO ATL” • General Production of the Fireworks Show “Music & Fire: Fantasy on the North Pole” • General Production and production design of the State Christmas Parade --Seven years in a row. • General Production and production design of the State Christmas Aquatic Parade on Santa Lucia. ORCHESTRAL MUSIC WORK • Opera Rock “Arcturus” and two LP-albums recording. • “Rhapsody and Sinfonietta” for Symphonic Orchestra -Based on Antonio • Tanguma and some other Folk composers. • “Five Northeast Landscapes” for Symphonic Orchestra • “Three songs for Nuevo León”, for Soprano, children choir, and Symphonic Orchestra. • Symphonic Poem: “The Journey of Quetzalcoatl” for Philharmonic Orchestra, Baritone, Soprano, Mezzo, Contralto, mix. Choir and double percussion. • “Four Monterrey Landscapes” for two Pianos and Symphonic Orchestra • “Stelle Filii”, for Soprano, strings and electronic music. • “PSALM” For Soprano and mix. Orchestra. • “TO ATL” For Symphonic Orchestra, Mezzo Soprano and Indigenous percussions. FILM MUSIC • Everything remains in the Family (Dir. Herman Galindo • Music Advisory for THE MEXICAN Dir. Gore Verbinski • EL DÍA .The Day. • FROM DEEP INSIDE THE HEART. SCRIPTS • THE DAY (Poem, adaptation and script) • FLYING AWAY (Feature film script) • FROM DEEP INSIDE THE HEART (Original Idea and script) • MY BIG HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE MEDICATED WEDDING (Original idea and script) • 1OOth ANNIVERSARY OF PANAMERICAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY (Script for Institutional Video) • PREMMUSA MUSIC AWARDS 2010 TV PROGAM (Collaboration -Azteca America) • BROTHERS OF JUSTICE (feature film script) • PARANORMAL REVELATIONS (Soft-script) VIDEO CLIPS • OMNIA • Denisse • 4X4 • EL PUENTE • MI REINA (Kike Meneses) • GRANADA (Gloria Alcázar) • BÉSAME MUCHO (Gloria Alcázar) • BORRÓN Y BOTELLA NUEVA (Julio César Juárez) TV COMMERCIALS • TV commercial Pizza Light, Josephine’s • TV commercials for several political campaigns. • INDUSTRIAL GRUPO ARSA PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART: • TROTAMUNDO • CON TODO • INTENSO • 4X4 • OMNIA • DENISSE • EL CD DE CÓMO DIJO • LOS CUENTOS DE LA ARDILLA Y EL SEÑOR COLIBRÍ • Graphical illustration and photography for the book “THE DAY” • GLORIA ALCÁZAR THE DIVA • “MY BIG HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE MEDICATED WEDDING” • “BORRÓN Y BOTELLA NUEVA” PHOTO AWARDS • Official Selection of the International Photography Award for his work “Where the Sky your Sight” CINEMATOGRAPHY • Several Shorts as “THE MONSTER” “OUR WATER”, etc. • Documentary “CHIPINQUE” • Feature Film “THE DAY” • Medium/Feature Film “ FROM DEEP INSIDE THE HEART” • FLYING AWAY (Pre-production) www.flyingawaythefilm.com • BROTHERS OF JUSTICE (Pre-Production) www.brothersofjusticethemovie.com • PARANORMAL REVELATIONS (Pre-Production) CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARDS • “TITAN” National Script Contest Special Award to his script “ If Death had a name” • Monterrey International Film Festival Best Feature Film Award for his work “THE DAY” • Monterrey International Film Festival Rogelio Cantú Awards for his work “THE DAY” • Strasbourg, France International Film Festival Best Edition Award for his work “THE DAY” • Strasbourg, France International Film Festival Best Score Award for work “THE DAY” • International Film Festival of India. Goa, India World Panorama Official Selection for his work “THE DAY” • San Antonio International Film Festival, Official Selection for his work “THE DAY” He was nominated President of Jury in the First Popular Music National Contest “La Academia” (TV Azteca) And Jury of the edition CD production state contest. Tao Mijares has collaborated on the production of many music and multimedia shows, scripts and photo projects. Currently, Tao is the CEO of Mucha Luz! Productions LLC, an entertainment production company based in California. He performs the composition in any music kind, musical arrangements, scores and orchestral scores, sync image-music as well as the musical production in general. Also, he has completed his university studies of Architecture specializing in acoustic buildings. He speaks Spanish, English, French, Italian and Polish.

Sheets

Interview

What does music mean to you personally?

Music is the most ethereal and spiritual of all the fine arts. Work with sounds, as an art-music composer, is working with the most subtle of all the substances: Sounds and silence.

Do you agree that music is all about fantasy?

Of course not! It is about science, harmony, structure, imagination, yes, but an organized one; all these elements should be put at the service of an aesthetic idea to express a universe of human feelings. Music is an absolutely complex phenomenon, a blend of precision, creativity, and expression. We are talking about art-music, not about the commercial music which the main goal is to make money, a totally different approach.

If you were not a professional musician, what would you have been? Maybe an astrophysicist or a Neurosurgeon.

The classical music audience is getting old, are you worried about your future?

Of course I am worried. However, I believe that the same way Bach music was preserved and rediscovered, even if the art-music almost disappear, somehow, the Universe will re-position it on the test of the general audience, through the real music lovers.

What do you envision the role of classical music to be in the 21 century? Do you see that there is a transformation of this role?

Nowadays, if we talk about the music composed in the last 5 years, for example, it is almost reclused to a very, extremely reduced audience. However, there is a field where (Believe it or not) there is space for this music to be fully appreciated for all kind of audiences, that is the film music. I’ve noticed that some very complicated serial music is used from time to time for certain kind of ,believe or not again, in the most commercial movies. Video games is another amazing field that can cast contemporary music to be tasted by almost all the audiences; thus, in my humble opinion, the new art-music, will be tight to the media production. I wish, at some point, there was a movement, or maybe a person or an institution that will take all that music to the concert halls a massive scale (From time to time, effectively, quality music from famous films, are taken to the big philharmonics around the world) Now, if we want to talk about art music at all times, I believe it will survive the eons; hopefully I am not being too optimistic!

When I say that classical music is searching for new ways or that the classical music is getting a new face, what would come to your mind?

I believe that creators, composers from all times, were always the new face and that this is a process that repeats today. What I don’t trust is the novelty for the novelty itself. When a composer tries „to be original, to be the new face of a movement,“ of necessity it will be a failure and won’t prosper. However, when a creator absolutely mindless regarding how „new or unique“ his aesthetic language is, but just stick to himself, after a long study of the music in general and letting him/herself permeate from the influence of the biggest music geniuses of the history, the new style, the new musical proposal, will emerge triumphant and eternal.

Do you think that the classical musician today needs to be more creative? What’s the role of creativity in the musical process for you?

As I said above, they have to be faithful to themselves. Maybe now, the creativity should be applied more to the filtration and selection, the decantation of all the influences around, trying to identify the real valuable from the useless ones. Unfortunately, there are plenty of very „famous“ composers whose work is basically worthless, but that are very well sold by the mainstream media; teach young generations of composers to recognize the universal value from the passing fashion with no deep value, should be a must. The creativity, I believe, per se and regarding the musical oeuvre, is warrantied with the new generations.

Do you think we musicians can do something to attract young generation into the classical music concerts? How will you proceed?

Again, accordingly to what I said before, probably what we need to do is just create awareness that young generations are already being exposed to art music in quality films, quality video games, in some advertising (Music from Ludwig, Wolfgang, and even Orff, are very often used in a number of commercials) and some global streaming systems like YouTube, propose very good new art music as a background music for video creations. If only the young musicians were aware of this motley variety of music, I believe it would result in an amazing impulse to art music.

Tell us about your creative process. Do you have your favorite piece (written by you) and how did you start working on it?

I could talk about the motivation to approach a piece. It could be an idea revolving in my mind or a commissioned work; in both cases the motivation is clear. Now, regarding the real creative process, I have to confess that I have no idea what it is. Somehow the music handles to flow while I am in a sort of stupor, numbness, unconsciousness, something like that. As a matter of fact, there are some of my compositions that I have no idea what was I thinking when I composed them; actually, some of them, like „5 ESTAMPAS NORESTENSES“ and the Symphonic Poem „Quetzalcóalt“ were born like that... and then again, I really don’t know how they were born.

We, Moving Classics TV, love the combination of classical music with different disciplines: music and painting, music and cinematography, music and digital art, music and poetry. What do you think about these combinations?

I am a strong believer, as Scriabin was, for instance, that music has both powers to be appreciated: By itself and as a part of a multidisciplinary work. Ballets and Opera are a great example of that approach based on the mediatic resources the composers, back those days had. Why not combine all the numerous media mean we can dispose of nowadays, with art music? The results, if it is done well, are always astonishing.

Can you give some advice for young people who want to discover classical music for themselves?

To pay attention all around; movies, video games, some ads, the internet, everywhere. Art music actually can be discovered in almost any place. Starting from there, to explore, to search, to educate themselves. Nowadays the have amazing tools for that purpose. All the have to do, is be aware of what they are hearing.

Now it is a common practice in the media to talk that the classical music is getting into the consumption business, do you agree? We are speaking about the supply and demand rules and how to sell your “product” in your case your compositions. How do you see it?

I believe that, especially if you are making a living out of music composition, you need some degree of commercialization that won’t compromise your integrity as a creator but that allows you to generate a taste for your work in the audience. Let’s say that for professional musicians is a necessary evil.

Do you have expectations what regards your listeners, your audience?

Just for them to give some of their precious time to listen to my work; that solely will be an honor.

What projects are coming up? Do you experiment with your projects? As a part of the creative process, I guess, all is experimentation, all should be the splendid experience of the new; after all, composing is creating, thus, experimenting new horizons