The first composition for flute and piano. Inspired by the great french-impressionist composers Debussy and Ravel, this piece treats color and fluidity in its style and mixes it with some latin-american flavor. The composition is a metaphor to the wonderful and unique five-colored river "Caño Cristales", located in "La Macarena", Colombia. 

This is the first version ever recorded by the composer himself at the flute and Arthur Saunier at the piano.

CAÑO CRISTALES First Version. Andrés Benavides - flute. Arthur Saunier - piano.

My Counterpoint Certificate composition. A piece originally conceived for a string quartet, this is a 4-voice-double-subject fugue.

Thanks to my friends Patricia Aller (Baryton Sax), Maude Degranges (Tenor Sax), Maxime Andre (Alto Sax) and Javier Blasco (Soprano Sax).

Bambuco Fugato for Saxophone Quartet

Another version of my piece Caño Cristales, played by the swiss musicians Sarah Rumer on the flute and Aydn Arslan on the piano. This version was performed during the Intermezzo Flute Festival in Gland, Switzerland, in 2015.

Caño Cristales. Second Version. Sarah Rumer - Flute. Aydn Arslan - Piano

This is a composition exercise based on the principle of composition used by Giorgi Ligeti in his Étude No. 3, for the blocked keys. Written on Spring this year 2016.

Blockus Tocus

Born in Medellin, Colombia, in 1986, Andrés is an eclectic and versatile flute composer/performer.  Although he felt a great affinity to music from a very early age, and having had a proper initiation, first learning to play the recorder, then receiving his first basis of solfège, piano and choir singing, and finally getting to know his mother-language-instrument, the transverse flute at the age of ten, his real proper and regular training would begin later in his life at the age of fifteen.
His real motivation to begin a true training in flute playing would be the desire of sharing music with his comrades at school, who used to play diverse styles of music as salsa, rock, funk, jazz and tango. Even if his instrument didn't have a good acceptance at all these styles, Andrés would always be enthusiast to play and learn from this popular music environment. In parallel, he would be receiving classical flute lessons from a private teacher, through which he would always conserve a close link to classical music. He would also feel a very close affinity to improvisation, composition, and arrangements, things he would discover little by little thanks to the challenges of getting to adapt to playing jazz, tango, salsa and funk with his school comrades. Finally, after finishing school, he chooses music as his professional project and, after preparing for a year, he manages to enter at the EAFIT University music degree, in his natal Medellin. There he would get to know Leon Giraldo, a definitive influence for his flute playing and his eclectic vision of music, being Leon a polyvalent flutist and musician. Andrés would also be under Hugo Espinosa's guidance, one of the fathers of a new generation of flutists in Medellin, and Elizabeth Osorio, who would be a very challenging and demanding teacher and one who would polish his character as a musician.
During his years in the EAFIT University, Andrés would experiment an enormous musical growth, having the opportunity to play in the Students and Professional orchestras of his school, plus having the opportunity of making very meaningful internships in the "Orquesta Filarmónica de Medellin", the city's main orchestra.  He would also grow as a soloist flutist, playing different solo concertos with the student's orchestra of EAFIT University, as well as many competitions in his country, earning the first prize in the Fourth Version of the Universitary Flute Competition of Bogotá in 2009. In parallel, he would continue to grow as an improviser, thanks to his participation within projects of fusion and latin music, as well to the advises received by great jazz players from the US who came to the country for cultural exchange. 
After finishing his flute degree in 2010, Andrés looks to widen his horizons. Having met beforehand with swiss-canadian flute teacher Michel Bellavance, he made contact with him and decided to try to audition in order to win a place in his flute class in Geneva's "Haute École de Musique", in Switzerland. After a painful travel and lots of new experiences, he presented the flute audition and was happily accepted. He  would then begin his new challenge in this new country in 2011. He made an intense flute bachelor under Michel Bellavance's guidance during three years. After finishing his flute bachelor period with Michel, he would then decide to take another direction, choosing to make a Music-Theory-and-Composition master in the same school, after realizing that he had to add something more creative to his musical experience and that he lacked the character of a soloist flutist required at an international level. After two years of intense work, he would finish on 2016, closing a long period of studies. Andrés is now pleased to share some of his first works written during the last two years.

Andrés

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