Composer Aurelio de la Vega was a prominent exponent of avant-garde styles in both his native Cuba and the U.S. The longtime director of the Electronic Music Studio and composer-in-residence at California State University, Northridge, he wrote music in a wide variety of media. De la Vega was born in Havana, Cuba, on November 28, 1925. He earned a bachelor's degree at the Colegio de la Salle in Havana in 1944. For a time, de la Vega considered a career as a diplomat, earning a master's degree in that field from the University of Havana in 1946, but he also studied composition with Fritz Kramer during this period and then returned to music, traveling to California for composition lessons with Ernst Toch in 1947 and 1948. In 1951, de la Vega enrolled at the Ada Iglesias Music Institute in Havana, earning a master's degree in musicology there in 1956 and a doctorate in composition in 1958. Between 1952 and 1954, he toured the U.S. as a lecturer, and he was active in various capacities in Cuba; he served as professor of music and chairman of the music department at the Universidad de Oriente in Santiago de Cuba from 1953 to 1959. He left Cuba that year for the U.S., settling in Los Angeles and becoming a U.S. citizen in 1966. In the summer of 1959, de la Vega held a guest professorship of music at the University of Southern California. He then joined the faculty of California State University, Northridge, remaining there until his retirement in 1992, and also serving as director of the university's Electronic Music Studio. In 1971, he received the Outstanding Teaching Award for the California State University system as a whole. His pursuit of an academic career did not impede de la Vega's compositions from wider appreciation. His music was performed widely, and he was nominated for Latin Grammy awards four times, three of them between 2009 and 2019 when he had already reached a great old age. He also received, in 1978, the Friedheim Award of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington for his orchestral work Adios, which had been commissioned and premiered by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. De la Vega wrote music in various styles, beginning with post-Impressionist works and later adopting free atonality and, for a time, serialism. Although he directed an electronic music studio, most of his works were for conventional instruments. He used experimental techniques in some pieces; Undici Colori (1981) was for solo bassoon and projections of abstract drawings. De la Vega wrote large numbers of works for orchestra, chamber groups, keyboard, and small vocal ensembles. Remaining active as a composer well after his retirement, de la Vega died in Northridge on February 12, 2022. ~ James Manheim, Rovi