Open Space Festival of New Music
March 13, 2025
7:30 p.m. Concert in Campus Commons Performance Hall
Devoted to works of contemporary music, Open Space features renowned guest artists in performances and lectures with involvement from our most talented School of Music students. This year’s concert features award-winning transgender Mexican-American composer Mari Esabel Valverde.
No ticket required, free and open to the public
Guest Composer
Mari Esabel Valverde
Award-winning transgender Mexican-American composer Mari Esabel Valverde, whose music has been reviewed as “heart-stopping” (BBC Music Magazine) and “of shimmering beauty” (The WholeNote), has composed art songs, chamber music, and works for chorus, orchestra, and wind ensemble. Her music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad in Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Taiwan.
She has been commissioned by the American Choral Directors Association, Boston Choral Ensemble, Cantus, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses, Los Angeles Master Chorale, One Voice Mixed Chorus, Portland’s Resonance Ensemble, Seattle Men’s and Women’s Choruses, the Texas Music Educators Association, and the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club. Her music appears on multiple albums: Ensemble Vocapella Limburg’s Vom Werden und Vergehen—Songs of Life and Death, Peninsula Women’s Chorus’s Women Making Waves, Cantus’s The Covid-19 Sessions, the International Orange Chorale of San Francisco’s Hope in Times of Disquiet, SACRA/PROFANA’s A Longing for Christmas, Seattle Pro Musica’s Solstice: Music of Light for the Holidays, Resonance Ensemble’s LISTEN, and Eric Ferring and Madeline Slettedahl’s No Choice But Love: Songs of the LGBTQ+ Community.
She has also built a reputation as a singer, educator, adjudicator, and translator. She has recently performed with Border CrosSing, Dallas Chamber Choir, and EXIGENCE Vocal Ensemble. Following six years as a high school classical voice instructor, she spent two years specializing in transgender voice training. Proficient in Spanish, French, and Brazilian Portuguese, she has translated numerous vocal works and documents including phonetic guides of Ravel’s opera L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Villa-Lobos’s Rasga o Coração.
A native of North Texas, she holds degrees from St. Olaf College, the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, France, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She is a member of ASCAP and the American Choral Directors Association.
