Following his appointment to the faculty of DePaul University’s highly respected School of Music, Ecuadorian composer Juan Campoverde proposed a new concert series focusing on the diversity of musical invention being created today by composers native to Latin America. His idea will become reality when DePaul launches “Encuentros/Encounters at DePaul,” with concerts on April 16 and 17 at the DePaul Concert Hall, 800 W. Belden Ave. The concerts are free and open to the public.

The inaugural concert at 8 p.m. April 16 will explore the dialogue between music and technology. Each of the event’s nine short works is digitally generated and includes a video or visual component. The second concert, at 3 p.m. on April 17, is devoted to solo piano pieces and illustrates a wide range of forms made possible by the cross-cultural fusion of differing musical traditions and idioms.

In planning these Encounters, Campoverde hopes to share his fascination with contemporary Latin American sounds, “by opening a new space for listeners and giving younger voices the opportunity to be heard.” Well-established and fledgling composers from Latin America are represented on these programs, although many of them, according to Campoverde, “have followed their dreams to go somewhere else.” Despite strong and well-established musical traditions throughout Latin America, composers often are hampered by economic conditions in these countries. Most reside and teach either in the United States or Europe.

The April 17 piano program is described by featured keyboard soloist Aglika Angelova as an exploration of the widest possible range of musical styles and idioms. For her, this program is “a mosaic of composers, all coming from similar cultures, yet producing sophisticated and highly complex music from diametrically opposed ends of the spectrum.” The piano pieces are based on a variety of musical forms and genres, such as sonatina, etude, tango and the blues. Angelova, who is also on the School of Music faculty, plays the six short works opening this program. Following intermission, Kay Kim and Adam Swayne, both piano students at Northwestern University, will perform.

Campoverde holds a full-time position in musicianship and composition at the DePaul School of Music. To date, his own output includes mostly chamber works that have been performed throughout the Americas, Europe and the United States by the acclaimed L’Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Excelsior Quartet and the Kammerensemble, among others. As a Fulbright Scholar, he came to the United States from Cuenca, Ecuador. He continued his musical studies at the University of Cincinnati, where he earned a master’s degree in music in 1993, and the University of California, San Diego, where he studied with Roger Reynolds and completed his doctoral degree in 2001.

“We welcome Juan, a very talented and personable young composer, as a valuable addition to our faculty of distinguished musicians,” said Donald Casey, dean of the School of Music. “Through this festival, Juan provides a new venue in Chicago to showcase the diversity of new music produced by Latin American composers.”

For more information about the “Encuentros/Encounters at DePaul,” call the DePaul School of Music at (773) 325-7260.