(b. 10 February 1948, San Diego, California – d. 20 August 2005, Coralville, Iowa).

American composer of mostly electroacoustic works and text scores that have been performed in Australia, Brazil, Europe, and North America; he was also active as a performer and visual artist.

Mr. Paredes initially studied composition with David Ward-Steinman at San Diego State University. He later studied art and technology and recording techniques with Lowell Cross, compositional linguistics and electronic music with Kenneth Gaburo and intermedia with Hans Breder at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he earned his MA in 1989 and PhD in 1990.

As a performer, he was active as a clarinettist, flutist and saxophonist in classical, jazz and other répertoire and appeared on numerous recordings, also including gypsy style, klezmer and music by Harry Partch.

As a visual artist, his Xerox artworks have been exhibited in the USA.

Mr. Paredes was also active in other positions. As a writer, he contributed essays, reviews and text pieces to the journal Perspectives of New Music (1995) and to The Open Space Magazine (2000–01, 2003–04), among other publications. His text pieces are also included in the books Image: A Collection (1988, with Elaine Barkin, Benjamin Boretz, Jane Coppock, J. K. Randall, and Catherine Schieve; Open Space Publications) and Intermedia: Enacting the Liminal (2004, edited by Hans Breder and Klaus-Peter Busse, Dortmunder Schriften zur Kunst, Vol. 3).

He taught composition as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Iowa from 1991–93, when he also served as director of its studio for electronic music, and later taught jazz improvisation and transcription as a visiting adjunct professor there from 2000–05.

SELECT LIST OF WORKS

CHAMBER MUSIC:

(On)e, flute, clarinet, 1985

Small Writing, cello, 1993–94

ORGAN:

Fleeting Ecologies in an Ontology of Halting, organ, fixed media, 1995–2005

ELECTROACOUSTIC:

Forgetting and Remembering, fixed media (2 tracks), 1986

Speakers (series of 17 compositions–writings–drawings), fixed media, 1987–93

TEXT SCORES:

Empty, 1990–93

So What Now, 1993–95

Listening, I Hear, 1996

DISCOGRAPHY

#16, 'Fiesta' from Speakers. (Music & Arts: 830, 1994)

Small Writing. Craig Hultgren, cello (Innova Recordings: 502, 1996)

Forgetting and Remembering; #17, '...[in every moment of decay]' from Speakers. (Innova Recordings: 528, 1999)