He was born in Madrid in 1952. His musical training took place at the conservatories of Barcelona and Madrid, mainly in Piano, Violin, Harpsichord, Harmony, Counterpoint and Fugue, Orchestral Conducting, and Composition. In 1979 he received a scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to pursue further studies at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where he attended the advanced composition classes taught by Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Santa Cecilia.
In 1981 he was awarded First Prize in the International Composition Competition “Centenary of the Orchestra of the Valencia Conservatory” for his work Punto de Encuentro. In 1986 he received the 4th Reina Sofía International Prize for Musical Composition, awarded by the Ferrer Salat Foundation, for his work Ocnos (Music for orchestra on poems by Luis Cernuda). He has received commissions from various official bodies, both national and international, and his works have been featured in numerous Spanish and international competitions and festivals. In January 1992, his Violin Concerto formed part of the program of the inaugural concert for the events of Madrid, European Capital of Culture.
From 1981 to 1985 he taught Harmony, Counterpoint and Composition at the Cuenca Professional Conservatory of Music, where he also served as secretary and later as director of the institution. From 1985 to 1992 he taught Harmony at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid, and from 1992 he held the same position at the Arturo Soria Professional Conservatory of Music in that city. Likewise, from 1991 to 1993 he taught Harmony and Counterpoint at the Reina Sofía School of Music of the Isaac Albéniz Foundation. Between 1992 and 2001 he served as Technical Advisor to the Regional Department of Music and Performing Arts, contributing to the development of music education within the framework of the LOGSE.
In 1986 he was appointed corresponding member of the Santa Isabel de Hungría Academy of Fine Arts in Seville, and in 1997 of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Granada. In September 1990 he directed the Composition and Analysis course of the 6th Alicante International Festival of Contemporary Music. In 1989, 1992 and 1996 he was invited by various U.S. universities and institutions (Colgate University, Oneonta University, Cornell University, Hunter College and the Manhattan School of Music in New York) to give and present a series of lectures and concerts on contemporary Spanish music. In September 1992, his work Tres Sonetos, commissioned by Colgate University in New York, was premiered.
In 1995 he received a commission from the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, in collaboration with the Regional Department of Education and Culture of the Community of Madrid, to compose the stage-musical work La Raya en el Agua, premiered at the reopening event of the Fernando de Rojas Hall at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in September 1996.
In November 1996 he was awarded Spain’s National Prize for Music by the Ministry of Education and Culture. In October 2000 he premiered the opera D. Q. (Don Quixote in Barcelona), with a libretto by Justo Navarro and staging by La Fura dels Baus, as part of the 2000–2001 season of Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu; with this work he received in December 2001 the SGAE Daniel Montorio Prize for the best score for a stage work.
In November 2001, the Tokyo String Quartet premiered in Madrid, in the Chamber Hall of the National Auditorium of Music, the string quartet Clémisos y Sustalos, composed on commission from the ensemble. In October 2004 the Brodsky Quartet premiered, in the Haydn in Cádiz series, the string quartet Las Siete últimas Palabras de Jesucristo en la Cruz.
In January 2006, the Málaga Philharmonic Orchestra dedicated its 12th Contemporary Music Cycle to him, performing a total of 17 works at the Teatro Cánovas and including the publication of an extensive biographical study by José Luis Temes, as well as a monographic CD with five orchestral works. In May 2008, Tour de Manivelle (Music for five short films by Segundo de Chomón), commissioned by the Orchestra of the Community of Madrid and the Teatro de la Zarzuela, was premiered as part of the traditional annual Concert-Screening.
From 2001 until his retirement in 2020 he was Artistic Director of the Spanish National Youth Orchestra, and from 2004 to 2015 President of the Spanish Association of Youth Orchestras. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Spanish National Choir, in 2021 he created a version for reduced orchestra (55 musicians) of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”), premiered in October 2021 at the National Auditorium of Music.
In March 2022, the plenary session of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando appointed him full member of the Music Section, filling the vacancy left by Antón García Abril; he took possession of Medal No. 30 on 23 April 2023.