Edmon Colomer has served as artistic director and principal conductor of the Daejeon Philharmonic in South Korea, Orchestre de Picardie in France, Simfònica de Balears, Simfònica del Vallès and Filarmónica de Málaga in Spain, and at the Eastern Music Festival in the United States. He has been awarded several prizes for his extensive recording activity with the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona, English Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestre de Picardie, Filarmónica de Málaga, the Choeur Radio France and the BBC Symphony Chorus. His repertoire includes works by Beethoven, Bernstein, de Falla, Fauré, Ginastera, Honegger, Milhaud, Poulenc, Rodrigo (Concierto de Aranjuez with Paco de Lucía) Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Weill and living composers including Balada, Guinjoan, Nillni and Lavista. His recordings are available on Auvidis-Naïve, Assai, Calliope, Ensayo, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, Philips, Triton and Virgin.

Edmon Colomer often links his conducting career with music education. In 1983 the Spanish Ministry of Culture entrusted him with the creation of the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España and in 2002 he was appointed Chevalier dans l’ordre des palmes académiques by the French Ministry of Culture.

The Catalan composer Leonardo Balada studied in his native Barcelona and then with Persichetti and Copland at the Juilliard School in New York. He joined the teaching faculty at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he is now a professor of composition. In his own composition he moved from an earlier neoclassical style to a more experimental, abstract form of writing, which has been subsequently modified by the use of varied musical material of ethnic derivation.

Operas
Balada’s operas include the chamber operas Hangman! Hangman!, based on a cowboy ballad, and The Town of Greed. Other operas on a larger scale include Zapata, Cristóbal Colón and The Death of Columbus.

Orchestral Music
Balada has been a prolific composer of orchestral music, his works including concertos for violin, for cello, for piano, and for four guitars, and a Concierto mágico – a second concerto for solo guitar.