Martín Sanhueza (Chile, 1996) is a guitarist, performer and improviser. With a craft focused in New Music and interdisciplinary creation, he has performed solo and as part of ensembles in venues in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Switzerland, Germany, Spain and Italy.
Martín is an active member of EMA (Chilean interdisciplinary ensemble), ruído blanco (New Music duo), side proYect (free improvisation quartet) and Almar Trio (Folk music) and is currently dedicated to the performance of contemporary repertoire for classical and electric guitar, as well as playing plucked strings (E-bass, Lute, Theorbe) in different new music projects.
In 2021 he was awarded a project of the Music Fund of the Chilean Government for the production of his debut album ‘Cantar el olvido’ (2022), which includes Chilean music for guitar articulated around the concept of memory. In 2023 he recorded for the album ‘Fábula de las tres mujeres - paisaje sonoro’, with incidental music for the theater play of the same name, composed by Vicente Larroulet. Martín has also recorded as session musician in various popular music projects.
Martín began his musical studies with composer Francisco C. Goldschmidt. He holds a Master's degree at the Hochschule der Künste Bern under the main guidance of Elena Casoli. He continues studying a Specialized Master in Contemporary music in the same institution.
I am a musician, I am a guitarist, I am Chilean and therefore Latin American. My focus is on current, contemporary, new, experimental music, or whatever name you want to give it. It seems to me a responsibility, a task and a pleasure for us musicians of this century to take charge of the music that is being created now; and to incorporate into this responsibility perspectives of territory and identity.
To accept how challenging it can be, to learn new aesthetics, to receive with openness the new -which will always be a consequence of the old-. To be open to interdisciplinarity, to explore exchange and new languages, to leave the comfortable space and the niche. All this for me is part of what defines and excites me today.
It is an aim and personal desire to co-create works from the contemporary art field with which the public, not necessarily specialized, can be moved and identified. To generate music programs that have a common thread, a connection with reality - why not a political statement as well -, aesthetic experiences that can be understood by the general public, while also addressing the problem of the over-specialization and academicization of today's music. The mission is to cross the border of the niche and at the same time to eliminate any limits that block the possibility of experimentation; not only for the public, but also for us as artists. Cantar el Olvido (2022), my first recording production, was a first exploration of this perspective and a foundation stone on which I want to create new musical programs, projects, and phonographic and audiovisual materials.
I understand all of this from a collaborative perspective, I cannot conceive any part of my artistic craft without collaboration and elaboration with others. We are social and communitarian beings, and from there, it seems to me, the profession must be exercised.