Joan Arnau Pàmies

Joan Arnau Pàmies was born in Reus (Catalonia, Spain) on March 3rd 1988. His serious interest in music began during high school, listening to the jazz records of his father, a man who really loved music. By that time, he also became interested in rock and pop music playing bass, keyboards and singing in a band of friends. In 2005, after the premiere of his Piano Concerto performed by the Reus Conservatory Orchestra and himself on piano -the first piece he wrote and in his own today’s words “something that nobody should listen to”, nevertheless it was a success-, he decided to study at the Professional Conservatory in Vila-seca (Catalonia, Spain) focusing his musical training in composition. He studied there with composers Enric Riu and Ramon Humet and also attended master-classes by Agustí Charles, Benet Casablancas and Jörg Wyttenbach. One year later, Pàmies became really interested in the jazz language and its harmonies, thinking that they could give him new materials and new shapes to his music and finally, he decided to move to Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) to study with jazz pianist Mariano Díaz and vocalist Kena Toledo at L’Aula de Jazz i Música Moderna of the Liceu Conservatory. In 2007 and after receiving a NEC Merit Award, he crossed the ocean and moved to Boston (USA), where he is currently studying composition with composer, flutist and conductor Mr. John Heiss at the New England Conservatory of Music and attending master-classes by some other great musicians like Anthony Coleman, Michael Colgrass, Barbara Kolb, Truls Mørk, Alain Bancquart, John Mallia, Michael Gandolfi, etc. Even though he considers himself as “somebody such as a classical-trained musician interested in experimentalism and improvisation”, Joan Arnau Pàmies was a former member of pop music band Main Road from 2003 to 2006, playing keyboards, piano, singing backing vocals and writing many songs. They recorded two albums, one of them -Fused, published by Edicions Singulars in 2004- was recorded at Tivoli Studies in El Vendrell (Catalonia, Spain) with Jesus Rovira as a sound editor and produced by the band itself. With this band he was finalist of many awards and prizes and also played in the main halls in Catalonia. This January 2008, he started playing harpsichord with a chamber music group coached by recordist John Tyson. The other members are oboist Camille White, flutist Laura Resnick -who used to work with Pàmies during the performances of Two Miniatures- and cellist Shaheen Lavie-Rouse. They perform renaissance and baroque repertoire. As a pianist, Joan Arnau Pàmies is now working on improvisation sessions, very influenced by musicians like Cecil Taylor, Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, Johann Sebastian Bach, Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, Brian Ferneyhough, renaissance music and many others. For Pàmies, sound becomes the essential and most expressive element of a work as it can be heard in pieces like Two Miniatures and Misunderstood confessions, both premiered recently in Boston. Joan Arnau Pàmies is a member of the Society of Composers in the United States.I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)