Daniel Cuéllar-Trujillo

Daniel Cuéllar-Trujillo was born on January 4, 1995, in Bogotá D. C., Colombia. He began his musical studies in the Colegio Italiano Leonardo Da Vinci (“Italian School Leonardo Da Vinci”) in Bogotá, where he performed in several choral concerts. He started piano lessons at the age of 11 with Álvaro Huertas.

He lived in Medellín, Colombia, from 2009 to 2018, where he continued his piano studies with Teresita Gómez, and commenced private composition classes with Juan Manuel Sandoval –a pupil of Colombian composer Johann Hassler–, and later with Juan David Osorio. Since 2011 he has received piano, counterpoint, harmony, musical analysis, composition, and orchestration lessons with Colombian composer Juan Antonio Cuéllar.

In 2013 he started a professional music career in composition, at EAFIT University, Medellín, where he graduated with honors in December 2018. During his career, he received composition lessons with professors Marco Alunno, Andrés Posada and Víctor Agudelo. In 2017 he had the opportunity to study with British composers Richard Leigh-Harris and Edwin Roxburgh, during one semester of an academic exchange program at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University, United Kingdom.

In 2016, he won the Premio Nacional de Música en Composición para Coro y Formato de Cámara (“National Music Prize in Composition for Choir and Chamber Ensemble”), granted by the Programa Nacional de Estímulos (“National Program of Incentives”) of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Colombia, with his piece Shir Hashirim: Prelude and Chant on the First Section of “The Song of Songs”, Op. 5, for SATB choir, chamber ensemble and percussion. In 2017, he was finalist in the Philip Bates Prize for Composers and Song Writers, UK, with his piece The Light of God, Op. 6, for soprano and string quartet. In 2018, he won the Concurso Jóvenes Talentos (“Young Talents Competition”) granted by the EAFIT Symphony Orchestra, with the first movement of his Symphony N° 1: In Nativitate Domini, for orchestra (a work that is in process of composition at the moment). In addition to these pieces, his catalogue includes several compositions for solo piano, piano duet, and different instrumental chamber ensembles.