José Vicente Jesús Asuar Puigrrós

José Vicente Jesús Asuar Puigrrós, born in Santiago in 1933, was a composer, civil engineer, researcher, educator, and pioneer of electroacoustic and computer music. He studied composition at the University of Chile and civil engineering at the Pontifical Catholic University, where he completed a thesis on the mechanical and electronic generation of sound. In 1959, he moved to Germany to continue his studies in composition and became involved with Berlin’s experimental electronic music scene. After returning to Chile, he taught acoustics and electroacoustics at the University of Chile and helped develop new educational and technical approaches to electronic sound through the creation of its Sound Technology program in 1969.

Asuar created works from electronically generated sound, magnetic tape, recorded audio, and computer- controlled systems, using technology to shape how music could be composed, performed, and experienced. In 1958, he founded the first electronic music laboratory in Latin America at the Catholic University in Santiago, where he composed Variaciones Espectrales, one of the earliest electronic music works created in the region. His research into sound synthesis and musical automation led him to establish electroacoustic music laboratories in Santiago, Karlsruhe, and Caracas, helping expand access to electronic composition and sound research in both Latin America and Europe. During the 1970s, he began developing computer music systems using technologies including the IBM 360 and PDP-8, investigating how computers could generate musical structures and process sound in real time. In 1978, he created COMDASUAR, a digital analogue computer system built specifically for composing, synthesizing, and performing electronic music. 

Concerts, recordings, broadcasts, and international festivals introduced Asuar’s music to audiences across Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Works including El Computador Virtuoso and Así habló el computador reflected his ongoing interest in computer generated composition, while projects such as Imagen de Caracas expanded his practice into large scale multimedia installations. During the final decades of his life, his work became the focus of renewed archival and historical interest through tributes, recordings, and the 2013 documentary Variaciones Espectrales. Asuar is recognized as one of the foundational figures in the history of electroacoustic and computer music in Chile and Latin America. He passed away in 2017.