Andrey Astaiza has been devoting his time to collaborative composition, horn playing and imagining fair societies through arts education as a human right for all.
As a performer, he has premiered works for solo horn and orchestra by Luis Saglie, Leonardo Cárdenas among other living Latin American composers.
In 2007, as a graduate student at UCLA, Andrey was engaged on short notice to conduct a concert featuring Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Vinnie Colaiuta and Nathan East at Royce Hall in Los Angeles. This performance has been an everlasting footprint in his musical career, with it perhaps being the genesis of his pursuit of non-traditional horn performing.
In the year of 2017 Andrey was captivated by the sound of the Marimba de Chonta (a UNESCO world heritage music genre and a musical instrument as well) and also any other non-imaginary objects made out of metal or wood; hence, his musical approach is linked to the endless possibillities that are derived from this mixture.
His recent compositional work is inspired by the Ligeti trio for horn, violin and piano which he performed for his doctoral studies at UCLA but most importantly his motivations come from the latest political upheaval of his country, Ecuador and Latin America as a whole. Currently Andrey is the Dean of the School of Sonic Arts at the University of the Arts in Guayaquil, Ecuador and a full-time dad of his five-year old son Pedrito, who teaches him the difference between hearing and listening.
