Born in Mexico City, Ana Lara attended the National Conservatory of Music, where her teachers included Mario Lavista and Daniel Catán; she later studied at CENIDIM with Federico Ibarra. She did postgraduate studies with Zbigniew Rudzinski and Wlodzimierz Kotonski at the Warsaw Academy of Music; and received her Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland in 2004. Her compositions–ranging from solo pieces to orchestral works–have been performed throughout Europe, Japan, as well as in the U.S., Central and South America, and her native Mexico. Lara served as composer in residence of Mexico’s National Symphony Orchestra; and has won the Mexican Ministry of Culture’s grant for young creators, the U.S./Canada/Mexico Creative Artists’s Residency Program Grant, and the Bellagio Artistic Residency.
In 2003, Lara was chosen by the American Composers Forum’s Continental Harmony program to write a collaborative work with Robert Maggio. The resulting 40-minute Dos Visiones / Two Visions, jointly commissioned by the Long Beach Symphony and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, was premiered under the direction of Enrique Diemecke. Her collaborations with dance companies include Montreal’s Louise Bedard Danse and Chicago’s Luna Negra Dance Company.
Lara has collaborated in various music journals and produces a program at Mexico City’s University Radio (Radio UNAM) devoted to contemporary music. She was a Latin Grammy Nominee for Best Classical Album Producer in 2000. Since 1998 she has been the founder/artistic director of Mexico’s International Festival Música y Escena, which received the Award of the Mexican Union of Critics of Theater and Music. Lara was also the Artistic Director of Puebla Instrumenta Verano 2004, a summer course for young players, and the artistic producer of the Universal Forum of Cultures, Monterrey 2007. She is currently the Mexican Cultural Attaché in Paris.