Duo Juum

Gabriela Villa studied viola at the Escuela Nacional de Música (ENM) of the unam (Autonomous National University of Mexico) and at the Conservatorio de las Rosas, Morelia, Mexico. She imparted music lessons at the Escuela Popular de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Popular School) of the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo (Mexico) throughout two years, where she simultaneously attended a Diploma course in aesthetics and art theory within the Philosophy faculty. She collaborated in the fostering of contemporary music in Mexico supporting the artistic coordination of the first and second editions of the Contemporary Music International Festival of Michoacán (Mexico).

She has participated in many interdisciplinary projects, among which the musical design of the short film titled "No oyes ladrar los perros" (Don't you hear the dogs barking), adapted from a homonymous story by Juan Rulfo, may be highlighted. She has taken part in concerts with different orchestras in Mexico and has been collaborator in various festivals and seminars. She has worked for Radio Michoacán (Mexico) as the conductor of "Ionización" a program devoted to contemporary music and has been granted scholarships and awards from the State Fund for Culture and Art of Sonora (Mexico, 2003-2004) in the discipline of Literature (Poetry) and from the Support Program to the Municipal and Community Cultures (Mexico, 2004-2005). She published the poetry book Páramo errante (Wandering Paramo, 2005) with Mora-Cantúa Editores.

She lived in Barcelona, Spain, where she studied postgraduate courses at the Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (MACBA) as part of the Program of Independent Studies (PEI). She was part of EnsAmble Crumble.

Currently she lives in Seattle were she splits her time between performing viola and writting poetry. She holds a grant from the Fondo Estatal para la Cultura y las Artes de Sonora for performing.

Hugo Solis is currently a Ph.D student at DXARTS. His main interests are musical structure of improvised music, human computer musical interaction, and audiovisual systems. Currently he works on the development of sonic and visual extensions for acoustic pianos and also plays with the Juum duet. He holds a DEA of Computer Sciences and Digital Communication from the Pompeu Fabra Univeristy where he was member of the Music Technology Group. At UPF, he founded the ensAmble Crumble and he developed computational analysis of its music. He contributed in the development of the reacTable*. He also got a Masters degree in Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Laboratory at the Opera of the Future group where he developed IMPI an audiovisual system for improvisatory music. He also contributed to the Toy Symphony project. As an undergrad, he studied piano, composition and music technology at the Escuela Nacional de Música of the UNAM in Mexico City. He also studied computer music with Nick Didkovsky at NYU. His interests in technology and improvisatory music inspired him to found the NICROM Trio, an interdisciplinary ensemble of electro-acoustic improvisatory music with action painting. Since then, he has played piano and electronics and has collaborated in many interdisciplinary projects in conjunction with dancers, painters, film-makers and radio-artists. In recent years, Hugo has also created several multimedia works and installations. His work ix-.-.hel got selected in the Transitio_mx 05. He has received grants from the FONCA, the PAEE-FONCA, the UNAM and TELMEX.