Leonardo Balada (22/09/1933), a Spanish composer (born in Barcelona). He graduated from the “Conservatorio del Liceu” of that city and the Juilliard School in 1960. He studied composition with Vincent Persichetti, Aaron Copland and conducting with Igor Markevitch. Since 1970 he has been teaching at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he is University Professor of Composition. Some of his best known works were written in a dramatic avant-garde style in the sixties (Guernica, María Sabina, Steel Symphony). He is credited with pioneering a blending of ethnic music with those avant-garde techniques later on, creating a very personal style starting with Sinfonía en Negro-Homage to Martin Luther King (1968), and Homage to Casals and Sarasate 1975. Balada has received several international awards.