SYMPHONY N°1 “Urban Light”for Symphonic Band by VICENT ORTÍZ GIMENO (Spain, 1987)

[#339] Jan 19, 2026

Spain | 2024 | Symphonic Band | Grade 6 | 26’ | Symphony

Premiered by Ateneu Musical Schola Cantorum de la Vall d’Uixó

conducted by Rafael Grau Vilar on July 21, 2024 in Valencia

This piece is available for purchase at Vicent Ortíz Gimeno

Urban Light, by Spanish composer and conductor Vicent Ortíz Gimeno is our Composition of the Week.

“Urban Light is an art installation located at the entrance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California, USA, inaugurated in 2008. The installation consists of two hundred and two restored antique lampposts from the city dating from the 1920s and 1930s and is signed by the artist Chris Burden.

The term symphony, understood as a generic concept (according to the definitions of the Oxford Dictionary of Music, Cambridge Dictionary, or Merriam-Webster), refers to a symphonic work of high complexity and length, divided into large sections, as in this case, four movements, this being the first work of this kind composed by Vicent Ortiz Gimeno. It is a commission from the “Ateneu Musical Schola Cantorum” and its director, Rafa Grau, to participate in the Honor Section of the 136th International Band Competition “Ciutat de València”, on July 21, 2024. The score has been recognized with important grants and awards, including the Composition Grant for Symphonic Works from the Institut Valencià de Cultura (IVC), the “Berklee Faculty Fellowship” from Berklee College of Music, a nomination for the Jerry Goldsmith Awards and the incentive for the premiere of symphonic works from the SGAE Foundation. The aforementioned art installation served as the starting point for the composition of the work, drawing parallels with the composer's experiences during the four years he lived in Los Angeles. While not a purely programmatic composition, it is the composer's interpretation of the city's spirit and a musical expression inspired by four moments of contemplation of Urban Light. These times of day lend their names to the symphony's four movements: Daybreak, Equinox, Dusk, and Skyglow, with a total duration of 25 minutes. The work is a constant interplay, alternating sections dominated by darkness with others that evoke luminosity. The work begins with Daybreak, the sunrise in Los Angeles, which occurs differently than we are accustomed to in our land, rising over the mountains rather than the sea. The opening bars of the piece display a frenetic energy, drama, and vivacity characteristic of a city that never sleeps, at the moment the first rays of sunlight appear, and the lights of Urban Light go out. This introduction serves as a presentation of the piece's two fundamental leitmotifs. The first is an ascending arpeggio dominated by the perfect fifth, an interval considered consonant, stable, and balanced, and which many other composers have used in the past as a reference to light. Its contrast, shadow, is the second motif: an almost chromatic descending line, resting on a diminished fifth, with an unstable character, considered by composers and theorists to be dangerous in the harmonic context, historically dissonant, and defined as “diabolus in musica”. Following the thematic introduction, the developments begin, starting from the band's lowest register, with a long crescendo that also expands the ensemble's sonic spectrum. The polyrhythms, the shadow motif on the scale of Olivier Messiaen's second mode of limited transposition, lead to a luminous climax inspired by the sunrise. The shadow theme then develops dynamically and transforms into light, based on Messiaen's third mode. A melodic and expressive tutti restates the light motif, which extends into a grand coda to conclude the first movement. Equinox is the scherzo, structured in a classic ABA form, with a brief introduction featuring the horns. Starting from the parallel of midday, when the Californian sun is directly overhead and light and its reflections shoot out in all directions, we find transformations of the work's themes into multiple characters: dark, playful, magical, dramatic, and full of the contrasts characteristic of moments of peak activity. It is composed with rhythmic continuity, where the pulse is constant throughout all the sections linked by metric modulations. The A sections are based on the theme of light, while the B section is a development of the theme of shadow, this time in Messiaen's second mode. Dusk is the sunset, especially special in Los Angeles, as the sun dips below the horizon, creating a vibrant display of color, the magical golden hour, and the first shadows characteristic of this time of day. It is the third movement, slow and reflective, with a very dark character, echoing the musical motifs of the work and featuring solo thematic developments. Along with chamber-like textures and moments of expressive virtuosity, the music leads us to a passionate tutti. This theme dissolves into a single-note ostinato, which also links other sections of the movement, ending in a very soft pianissimo that, without breaking the continuity of the musical discourse, gives way to the fourth movement. The fourth movement is inspired by the luminous reflection seen on cities from a distance, the skyglow effect, and the gaze towards the horizon where the lights blur into the sky. With this premise, the final movement begins with an aggressive tutti introduction full of virtuosity, irregular rhythms, and unpredictability, creating a very dense texture in which the recurring musical motifs are hidden. It is frenetic music, a journey that requires stepping back to gain perspective, with fugal sections and a climactic point that drops suddenly. This is followed by a calm, serene section with a chamber-like treatment, before a grand crescendo to the final coda, in which we hear the two themes superimposed, bringing the work to a powerful close.” Program notes by Vicent Ortíz Gimeno

Urban Light is scored for large symphonic band, including cellos, double-basses, piano and harp.

Vicent Ortiz Gimeno is a film and television composer and associate professor at Berklee College of Music (Valencia Campus). He began his musical studies with his father, Vicente Ortiz Diago, his principal teacher and mentor. After obtaining his advanced degree in clarinet performance from the Castellón Conservatory, he moved to Boston, where he graduated summa cum laude from Berklee College of Music with degrees in film composition and orchestral conducting, thanks to a scholarship from SGAE (the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers). He holds a master's degree in cultural project management and entrepreneurship from UNIR (International University of La Rioja).

His compositions for symphonic band and for audiovisual media have been recognized in national and international competitions, such as the Ciutat de Llíria prize, Millican Composition Award (Boston), Berklee Composition Competition (Boston), Miguel Hernández prize (Castuera, Badajoz), Ciutat de Castelló, ASCAP Foundation Steve Kaplan Award (New York), Hollywood Music in Media Award (Los Angeles), Concorso di Corciano (Italy), Global Music Awards (Los Angeles), Euterpe prize of the FSMCV (Valencia), Jerry Goldsmith Awards, etc.

With credits on over 50 film and television projects, his compositions for Los Farad (Prime Video, Mariano Barroso), El Campeón (Netflix, Carlos Therón), Las Abogadas (TVE, Juana Macías and Polo Menárguez), Llenos de Gracia (Roberto Bueso), La Vida Padre (Joaquín Mazón), La Línea Invisible (Movistar+, Mariano Barroso), El día de mañana (Movistar+, Mariano Barroso) , La tribu (Fernando Colomo) , Lo que escondían sus ojos (Salvador Calvo), and Cuerpo de élite (Joaquín Mazón) stand out. He has also worked as an additional music composer on the films Tadeo Jones 2 , Un gallo con muchos huevos , Pequeños Héroes , The Rezort , and the biopics for the PBS American Experience series about John F. Kennedy and Walt Disney, among others. He has worked as an orchestrator on Damsel, James Bond: No Time to Die, Misconduct , Hunter's Prayer , Blue Planet II, Los Lunnis, La vida inesperada , Isabel, etc. He has been part of teams of composers such as William Ross, Federico Jusid, Lucio Godoy, Joel Goodman, Zacarías M. de la Riva, Andrea Morricone, Heitor Pereira and Hans Zimmer.

Vicent studied orchestral conducting with Francisco Noya and George Monseur at Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA, attended classes at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with Travis Cross and Michael Haithcock, and participated in several courses with Enrique García Asensio and Bernardo Adam Ferrero. He was assistant conductor of the Berklee Symphony Orchestra and conductor of the Berklee Society of Composers Orchestra. He has conducted concerts and recordings with the Budapest Arts Orchestra, Hollywood Studio Orchestra, Berklee Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta de Extremadura, and Orquesta de Valencia, in venues such as Jordan Hall, Berklee Performance Center, and Palau de la Música in Valencia, and in recording studios such as The Bridge Studio and the Newman Stage at 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles and WGBH Studios in Boston. He has appeared as a guest conductor with the Los Angeles Symphonic Winds and has been a guest composer and conductor at the Idyllwild Music Festival in California. As a conductor, he has premiered more than 50 works by composers such as Rafael Beltrán, José Alamà, Enrique Hernandis, Alfonso Peduto, Juan Carlos Enríquez, Christopher Gough, Nick Qosqadi, and Joshua Cohen. He was the director of the Societat Musical Eslava d'Albuixech from 2019 to 2024.

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Other works for winds include:

• Porot (Grade 5, 17:30)

• Germanies (Grade 4, 11:00)

• Divertimento (Grade 4, 7:30)

• 8 de Febrer (Grade 3, 11:00)

• Balan fô (Concerto for Marimba, Grade 4, 11:00)

• Un deber de amor (Grade 4, 15 :00)

More on Vicent Ortíz Gimeno

https://vicenteortizgimeno.com