FRANCISCO NÚÑEZ PALACIOS
Born in 1980 in Montpellier, France, Francisco Núñez Palacios holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music Theory from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Chile, and a Master’s degree in Advanced Performance with a specialization in Orchestral Conducting from the same institution. He also holds a Master’s in Applied Composition for Audiovisual Media from the Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona.
He has studied under renowned conductors including David Del Pino Klinge (Peru), Rodolfo Fischer (Chile), Zsolt Nagy (Hungary), Michal Nesterowicz (Poland), Marin Alsop (USA), Giancarlo Guerrero (Costa Rica), Emmanuel Siffert (Switzerland), Pedro Ignacio Calderón and Carlos Vieu (Argentina), Noam Zur (Israel), and Ligia Amadio (Brazil), highlighting his participation in the 2022 International Conducting Workshop and Competition in Szeged, Hungary, with Maestro Rüdiger Bohn (Germany).
In 2009, he won the 1st National Orchestral Conducting Competition organized by the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Chile. Since then, he has been a regular guest conductor with the National Symphony Orchestra of Lima (Peru), the Symphony Orchestra of the National University of Cuyo, the Mendoza Philharmonic, and the Rosario Provincial Symphony Orchestra (Argentina). In Chile, he has also worked with the National Symphony Orchestra of Chile, the Classical Orchestra of the University of Santiago, the Chilean Chamber Orchestra, the Valdivia Chamber Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the University of Concepción, the Antofagasta Symphony Orchestra, the Temuco Philharmonic, the National Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestra of the University of La Serena, serving as Artistic Director of the latter from 2016 to 2017.
Among his notable projects is the July 2012 premiere of the opera Renca, París y liendres by Chilean composer Miguel Farías, conducted with the National Symphony Orchestra of Chile. He has also recorded Horacio Salinas’s Patagonia Suite and Camilo Salinas’s incidental music for the television series Los 1000 días de Allende, both with the Classical Orchestra of the University of Santiago. With the same ensemble, he led the reconstruction and recording of Arauco and Oficina abandonada, works by Mariano Casanova and Víctor Jara.
He has worked on numerous occasions with the band Congreso in the presentation of the show Congreso Sinfónico, which was released in 2013 on the album Sinfónico. In 2019, he conducted the Orquesta Nocturna in the recording Ya es tiempo – Homenaje a Congreso, which they released with Nano Stern and Simón González. In 2015, he conducted the show Pink Floyd – The Wall Sinfónico, alongside the Mendoza band Eclipse and the Symphony Orchestra of the University of Cuyo. In 2025, he led the Compañía de Música Contemporánea in a performance of the Ääniä Suite by composer and bassist Lauri Porra. In the jazz world, he has been the director of the Quintessence Ensemble since its founding, releasing four albums with them: 2005–2007, Anónimo, Décimo, and Inédito, the third of which won the Pulsar Award for Best Jazz Album in 2016.
Finally, in Arlequín, his most recent project, he further develops his role as a composer in the field of so-called new Chilean popular music. Drawing on both the tradition of European music and its diverse developments in the first half of the 20th century, Arlequín seeks to nourish this heritage with sources from Latin American folklore, urban popular music, tango, jazz, and rock.
Francisco has also built a thriving career as an arranger, orchestrator, and composer. In 2018, he moved to Buenos Aires to study with renowned Argentine composer Diego Schissi, and in 2021, he relocated to Barcelona to pursue a master’s degree under the guidance of acclaimed Spanish composer José Nieto. The result of this work is the composition Blues para Aquiles, which won first prize at the 2022 Third Heritage Short Film Composition Competition, organized by the Valdivia Film Festival and the Valdivia Chamber Orchestra.
He has composed original music for several theatrical productions, including Sonata para un cuervo, Or Vuá!, Infelices, and La soberanía del cuerpo.
In early 2024, he wrote a symphonic adaptation of the main theme from the television program Informe Especial, recorded by the National Symphony Orchestra of Chile. Other highlights of his work as an arranger include a symphonic version of Luis Advis’s celebrated Canto para una Semilla, and a series of orchestral arrangements for Tango Sinfónico, performed in 2014 by the Symphony Orchestra of the University of La Serena.
Most recently, in November 2024, he was awarded first place in the Classical Music category at the 20th “Luis Advis” Music Composition Competition for his work Vendaval, written for marimba and orchestra.
Francisco has been teaching for over two decades, across a broad range of settings. He has collaborated with various symphony orchestras, presenting educational concerts that have reached tens of thousands of students throughout Chile and Argentina. His aim has consistently been to inspire children and young people to explore music more deeply, examining its scientific nature as a physical phenomenon, reflecting on perception and psychoacoustics, and engaging with the technical and structural aspects of musical discourse.
His academic contributions include teaching Harmony, Orchestration, Conducting, Piano, and répétiteur work at several Chilean universities. He has also remained committed to music education through his role as musical director for various children’s and youth orchestras
In addition, he has worked extensively as a music editor, restoring and publishing works such as Luis Advis’s Suite Latinoamericana, Jorge Peña Hen’s opera La Cenicienta, and Nino García’s Formulaciones Anímicas.
