Alfredo Villela has been involved in professional music for over twenty year, during which time he has been immersed in a variety of areas, such as composition, performance, music therapy, teaching, production and multimedia.

Alfredo has been mentored by outstanding musicians such as Dr. Richard Bulanger and Bruce Kats, both at Berklee College of Music, Dulce Maria Sortibran and Alejandro Esbri at the Escuela Superior de Musica (…). He is currently collaborating with performer/composer Allison Sniffin (a member of the Meridith Monk group) on the creation of “syncretic music” which has been performed at the Merkin Concert Hall.

He has become an invaluable asset to the study of Nahuatl music through his research of the purest form of Nahuatl music:“Classical Nahuatl or Classical Aztec”. He has developed his intellectual and spiritual dimensions guided by the anthropologist Miguel Leon Portilla, the Oaxacan painter Edmundo Aquino and the Nahuatl artisan Maximino Ibarra. He has also studied the ethnomusical work of Henrietta Yuchenco as well as the codix Cantares Mexicanos.

Musicologists have appreciated and studied his recent work with Allison Sniffin “Oyeme con los Ojos”, an intertwining of his “Manifesto of Syncretic music” with sonnets of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.

Alfredo Villela is also a virtuoso performer of Nahuatl instruments in varied settings such as concert halls, shrines, museums and classrooms. His talent was recognized by Jyoti Chrystal and Dr. Jason Martin, who brought him on as an ethnomusical therapist and percussionist in the shamanic tradition at the spiritual center “Starseed” in NJ. He teaches and guides spiritual journeys, artfully employing the huehuetl and teponaztli.

Alfredo Villela’s musical path has been complemented recently with the “Fondo Tonantzin” foundation, which provides financial support to organizations that promote teaching of pre-columbian music.

The most recent musical recitals of Alfredo Villela’s syncretic music demonstrate the strong influence of pre-columbian elements: Xochitemolia in Nopilhuan (Flowers for the children) composition and  performance of: --huehuetl, teponaztli, coyolli, huilacapitzli—and real time computer. Instituto Cultura de Morelos, Sala Manuel M. Ponce. Cuernavaca, Mor. México (27/8/2005); Tonantzin- Annual concert at Fletcher Hall, UU Church, Montclair, NJ. (20/5/2006); Composiciones de Música Sincrética. Auditorio Angélica Morales. Escuela Superior de Música. Coyoacán. México, D.F. (28/8/2006) and, the world premier concert of " Oyeme con los Ojos" (hear me with your eyes) at Merkin Concert Hall en New York (18/11/ 2006). In this last piece, Alfredo Villela collaborated with  composer Allison Sniffin, creating an authentic prehispanic sound, based on "Cantares Mexicanos" that accompanied poetry of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: "Hoy la Maestra Divina" and "Himno a María", which make up "Danza a Tonantzin".

Mario A. Ortiz, an academic at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. has written “En una lectura moderna de textos de Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz” the following: “…of the musical reactions of three outstanding composers […] the cantata “The Devine Narciso” of John Eaton (1998); the oratorio “The Child” of John Adams (2000), and the cantata “Hear me with your eyes” of Allison Sniffin (2006) “…my analysis is principally focused on the central movement of the cantata “Dance to Tonantzin […] in which the song to the Virgin Mary is described through a musical metaphor and the villancico-tocotin “Tla ya timohica” (from the same series)[…]which is full-fledged indo-european syncretism. This syncretism is achieved in different ways: the text is read simultaneously, the original languages are employed in each poem (Nahuatl and Castilian), the combination of a villancico with a European structure with the Aztec dance of tocotin, and the Aztec instruments (huehuetl and teponaztli among others) are mixed with European instruments […] this all underlines the imagined cultural syncretism.

*The use of repetitious rythms based on the Nahuatly tradition and Cantares Mexicanos, amalgamated with techniques of contemporary composition, taking the listener to a state of balance and spiritual trance.

Alfredo Villela has been studying pre-Columbian music for many years. As a Mexican, he is the result of an amalgam of cultures. Not surprisingly, he has sought to combine his passion for both electronic contemporary composition and acoustic Aztec instruments and the conventions used to play and compose for them. He considers the repetitious polyrhythmic style he employs to be the result of syncretism. In addition to disparate sources used for composition, a second level of syncretism comes about by combining diverse sounds such as those made native acoustic instruments and computers. He sees himself as following in a tradition of Mexican Nationalist composers like Carlos Chavez and Silvestre Revueltas, who intended to maintain a bridge between popular Mexican traditions as well as contemporary composition. In addition, he is heavily influenced by minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. The work he is presenting uses percussive instruments (Huehuetl and Teponaztli) as well as flutes (huilacapiztli and ocarinas), rattles (chicahuatzli), guitar and laptop. Alfredo Villela intends to preserve and continue the musical tradition passed down by pre-Columbian cultures.