Born in Spain in 1933, Leonardo Balada studied composition at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, and has since spent much of his life in the United States. Rejecting the serial techniques of the Second Viennese School, yet equally opposed to neo-classicism, Balada has fashioned a personal style of modernism. He has been strongly influenced by Catalan folk music, and it is that source that provides the thematic material for his virtuoso Violin Concerto No. 1. That inspiration continues in the Catalan dance, the Sardana, with Balada finding additional folk material in Ireland and Latvia for the surrealistic score, Folk Dreams. The highly festive mood for Fantasías Sonoras (‘Fantasies in Sound’) came in response to a commission for a work to mark the opening of the Benedum Center for Performing Arts in Pittsburgh.