Samuel Zyman

Samuel Zyman, a longtime New York-based Professor of Music Theory and Analysis at the Juilliard School, and, more recently, also at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music in Nashville, is acknowledged as one of the leading Mexican composers on the international scene today. His music is characterized by intense and vigorous rhythmic energy, expressive lyricism, and the frequent use of imitative counterpoint. His musical language often displays both his Mexican and his Jewish heritage. Zyman’s best-known composition is his Sonata # 1 for Flute and Piano, a work that has entered the standard repertoire all over the world. Other frequently performed pieces are his Sonata # 2 for Flute and Piano; his orchestral work Encuentros, a colorful and highly rhythmic piece with a Mexican sound to it; and his Fantasía Mexicana for Two Flutes and Orchestra (or piano), among others. His catalogue comprises 77 works in a wide variety of genres. Zyman’s works have been widely and frequently performed in the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Slovakia, Russia, Taiwan, South Korea, and many other countries, by artists such as Yo-Yo Ma and Plácido Domingo, and ensembles such as the American Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Grant Park Orchestra of Chicago, the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (OFUNAM) and all other major Mexican orchestras, the Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville, the National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina, the Oakland Symphony Orchestra, the Paris Sinfonietta, the Slovak Philharmonic, the Cassatt Quartet, and many others. Zyman’s works can be heard on numerous CDs on such labels as Urtext Digital Classics, Ambassador, Sony Classics, EMI, Quindecim, Albany Records, Naxos, Island Records, and I.M.P. Masters, as well as in numerous YouTube videos.

One of Zyman’s most recent major works, his epic opera Cuitlahuatzin, was premiered in an outdoor plaza in Iztapalapa, Mexico City, on October 22, 2022, and then performed again at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City on July 17 and on September 30, 2023, to great critical and audience acclaim on every occasion. The original idea for Cuitlahuatzin was conceived by Samuel Máynez Champion, who also wrote the libretto for it (in Spanish); this libretto was subsequently translated into Nahuatl by Patrick Johansson. The opera tells the story of the penultimate Aztec emperor, the only indigenous leader ever to defeat the Spaniards militarily during the conquest of Mexico. As Sabina Berman wrote in the Mexican daily El Universal in her review entitled “Cuitlahuatzin, a triumph of excitement at the Palace of Fine Arts”: “There are very few events where a people’s national identity steps forward to show itself in a new light. This opera is one of those moments.” Indeed, Zyman’s Cuitlahuatzin, one of the very few operas fully sung and spoken in Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs), showcases onstage the voices of indigenous people of the American continent at a defining moment in the history of the Mexican nation—in their own language. See link for a semi-staged version of the entire opera (1 hour and 40 minutes in duration), as performed at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City on July 17, 2023, in Nahuatl, with English subtitles (full credits are given at the end).

Another major recent highlight was Zyman’s Sacrifixio, a modern-dance piece for chorus, percussion quartet, and piano with choreography by the Colombian choreographer Alvaro Restrepo. This work was conceived to celebrate the peace accords signed by the FARC rebels and the government of Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, who received the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for this accomplishment. Sacrifixio was premiered at the Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo in Bogotá in July 2018, by the Colegio del Cuerpo Dance Company, the chorus of the Opera of Colombia (Luis Díaz Herodier, director), the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble of Mexico, and pianist Duane Cochran, all under the baton of Adrián Chamorro. President Santos was in attendance.

In January 2016, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Carlos Prieto premiered Zyman’s 30-minute work Canto a la Música (Ode to Music), for two solo cellos, youth chorus, and youth orchestra, at Mexico City’s majestic Sala Nezahualcóyotl, with the National Esperanza Azteca Youth Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of Music Director Julio Saldaña. Canto a la Música celebrates the involvement of young people in Mexico and around the world in classical music, and the significance of music to everyone, performers and listeners alike. Zyman wrote both the music and the text. See link for a Mexican TV documentary (in Spanish) about the creation of this work and its premiere. 

Samuel Zyman was born in 1956 in Mexico City, where he studied piano and conducting at the National Conservatory of Music with María Teresa Castrillón and Francisco Savín, respectively. He also studied counterpoint and analysis privately with the Mexican composer Humberto Hernández Medrano, and he studied classical piano with the legendary Mexican jazz pianist Juan José Calatayud and with Héctor Jaramillo. Zyman earned MM and DMA degrees in composition at the Juilliard School in New York City, where he studied with the American composers Stanley Wolfe, Roger Sessions, and David Diamond.