Agustín Castilla-Ávila is a composer, guitarist, improviser, graphic artist, author and artistic researcher.

As a composer, he worked in Europe, Asia and America. His music has been conducted by D. Russell-Davies, J. Kalitzke, T. Ceccherini, A. Soriano, H. Lintu and H. Schellenberger, among others. He has written solo and chamber music, orchestras, plays, choreographies and five chamber operas. His music has been played at international centers including Brucknerhaus Linz, Glinka Hall Saint Petersburg, Harpa Hall Reykjavik or Musiekgebouw Amsterdam. He is currently writing the opera «Cerro Rico» for the New York Opera Society. He has published for Doblinger Verlag, Bergmann Edition, Verlag Neue Musik, Da Vinci Edition, Mackinger Verlag and Joachin Trekel. His music has been recorded on thirteen CDs and two DVDs.

He is president of the International Society for Ekmelic Music and director of the symposium «Microtones: Small is Beautiful» in Salzburg (2015, 2017 2019 and 2021). He created a 36EDO system for guitar using scordatura. His microtonal ideas were presented in «The Contemporary Guitar» by John Schneider or in Franck Jedrzejewski’s «Dictionnaire des musiques microtonales», among other publications.

He is currently writing the research “Instrumental Techniques Interchange, On Processes of Importing and Exporting Techniques in the Composition and Performance of Contemporary Music” at the University of Salzburg and Mozarteum University.

Silence is an area of research for Castilla-Ávila is. In 2013 he composed “The Rest is Silence”, the first existing silent opera, for which he was awarded the Salzburg Region’s annual scholarship. In 2008 he created the graphic series «Still Life with Silence». He exhibited these works in Japan, Ukraine, Latvia, Austria, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and Mexico.

As a lecturer, he gave more than 100 lectures on his ideas in several countries in Europe, Asia and America (including Juilliard in New York, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Yong Siew To Conservatory in Singapore, Boston University). As an author, he has also published several publications on these ideas in Austria, the USA, Poland and Slovenia.

He is currently Visiting Professor for Artistic Research at Instituto Katarina Gurska de Investigaciones Artísticas in Spain. He had previously taught at other international institutions (including the Orff Institute at Mozarteum, Arizona State University, Conservatorio Profesional de Lucena, Conservatorio Profesional de Ceuta) and given master classes.