HILDA PAREDES was born in Mexico were she began to study piano and flute. She arrived in London in 1979 where she continued her studies and performances as a flutist. In the first few years in London she also did several arrangements of popular and classical music for various ensembles with whom she regularly performed. Her first completed compositions date from this period.

As a composer she was an active participant in master classes at Dartington Summer School with Peter Maxwell Davies and Richard Rodney Bennett. She graduated at the Guildhall School of Music and obtained her Master of Arts at City University in London. She completed her Ph.D. at Manchester University.

In 1988 she received the Music for Dance Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain for the creation of El Prestidigitador and was then invited to take part in the International Dance Course for Professional composers and choreographers.

She took part in the first Garden Venture Opera Project at Dartington, organized by Covent Garden Royal Opera House in the summer of 1989, where her first music-theatre pieces were completed.

In 1990, the Arts Council of Great Britain awarded her the fellowship for composers to complete her first chamber opera The Seventh Seed, which is now released on CD by Mode Records (mode 60). During that year she returned to Mexico where for five years she taught at the University of Mexico and produced a weekly radio show specializing in new music. She also published several articles on music in different music magazines and newspapers. She collaborated with the Orchestra of Baja California doing several arrangements and orchestrations of Spanish and traditional Mexican songs, some of which have been released on CD.

She has been recipient of important awards in Great Britain, the USA, and Mexico, including the Holst Foundation award for composers in the UK, the Sistema Nacional de Creadores Fellowship, the Rockefeller, Fund for Culture Mexico/USA award, and recently the prestigious J.S. Guggenheim Fellowship.

She now lives in London as a freelance composer.

Miss Paredes has been commissioned by soloists, ensembles and orchestras in Great Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Mexico, and the U.S.A. Her music has been widely performed at important international festivals such as Dance Umbrella, and Huddersfield in the UK; Darmstadt, Eclat, and the Romerbad Musiktage in Germany; Musique D'Aujourdhui and Octobre en Normandie, in France; Wien Modern, in Austria; Akiyoshidai Music Festival, in Japan; Archipel, in Geneva; De Ijsbreker Chamber Music Festival, in Amsterdam; Warsaw Autumn, in Poland; Ultima, in Oslo; and Festival Cervantino and Foro de Musica Nueva in Mexico, amongst others.