Óscar Mascareñas
Óscar Mascareñas is from Monterrey, Mexico. He is a musician, poet and musicologist. He holds a Master of Arts in Chant and Ritual Song by the University of Limerick, Ireland, and a BSc in Industrial Physics and Engineering by the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Mexico). He began his musical studies in 1983 at the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey, where he studied violin with Jorge Risi, Luis Manual Salazar and Pedro Cortinas.
From 1995 to 2000 he produced and composed music, both instrumental and vocal, for the local and national television and radio in Mexico, as well as for his own private collection. During 1998 and 1999 he obtained two scholarships from the Centre of Composers of Nuevo León (CCNL) to work on compositions for chamber ensembles, being one of the four founders of the Centre. At the CCNL he attended master classes with national renowned composers Manuel De Elías and Juan Trigos. One of his works for saxophone and piano (‘Samson dux fortissime’) was recorded and produced by the Ministry of Culture of Nuevo León in 2000. In 1998 he founded the Perotinus Schola Cantorum, an ensemble dedicated to the research and performance of medieval music.
He studied chant performance and musicology with Dr. Katarina Livljanic (Paris, Sorbonne), Benjamin Bagby (Paris, Sorbonne), Dr. Lila Collamore (USA), and with Catherine Sergent and Caroline Magalhaes (Paris, Centre de Musique Médiévale).
He has performed medieval music extensively in Limerick, Cork, Dublin and Galway, in Ireland; in Leeds, in the U.K.; and throughout the State of Nuevo León, in Mexico, and has appeared on Mexican television and radio as well as on Irish radio and television on Tipp FM, Limerick 95 FM, TG4 and RTÉ 1. His main instruments include the voice, the violin, the medieval fiddle, the symphony and the percussions. He also enjoys playing the piano and the bass guitar. He has presented his research to the Society for Musicology in Ireland (2003), at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, England (2004, 2005), for the study group of the International Musicological Society CANTUS PLANUS, in Hungary (2004) – paper published in 2006 – at the International Conference “The Beginnings of Christian Music in Europe” on the occasion of 120th birth anniversary of Egon Wellesz, celebrated in Koŝice, Slovakia in 2005 – paper published in 2005 – as well as in several research seminars in the University of Limerick.
He is in the final stage of his doctoral research in Gregorian chant at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in the University of Limerick, under the supervision of Dr. Emma Hornby (University of Bristol), and Dr. Helen Phelan (University of Limerick). His project consists in the study of play in Gregorian chant - focusing on the so-called ornamental signs (quilisma and oriscus) - using aspects of post-modern theory, in particular the philosophical approaches of the deconstructive school founded by Jacques Derrida.
Óscar is also a Latin American music performer. He has arranged, performed, produced and recorded salsa and merengue music in the past 18 years. He is also a dancer, and is co-founder of iSalsaLive, and teaches Latin American dance with salsa dancer and ethnochoreologist Cathriona Murphy in the BA in Voice and Dance, the BA in Irish Music and Dance as well as in Limerick city.
From December 2003 to November 2005 he was Assistant Course Director of the Master of Arts in Chant and Ritual Song programme at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, and from December 2005 to January 2007 Acting Course Director of the same programme. He is currently Course Director of the BA in Voice and Dance at the Academy. He has directed the Gregorian chant ensemble Musica Disciplina and the ensemble Lucernarim, with whom he produced a chant CD, and co-produced a choral/chant CD in May 2005. He was the Executive Artistic Director of the Second Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) Music Camp I’mPULSE GOL: ‘A Gathering of Voices from Asia and Europe’, organised by ASEF and the Irish World Academy in November 2005. At the Academy he currently teaches musical palaeography and semiotics, chant performance, Latin American song and dance, Western choral music, and voice skills for performance.
29 November, 2008
