Diogenes Rivas (born October 4, 1942) is a Venezuelan composer as well as a researcher of contemporary music. Additionally, he devotes time to teaching and the training of young composers. Rivas is the co-founder and artistic director of the Festival Atempo (Caracas) and artistic director (along with Pierre Strauch and Antonio Pileggi) of the Paris Nuit d'Atempo. Biography Diogenes Rivas began to study music in the city of Mérida at the age of four with his father, Professor Jose Rafael Rivas, studying piano and oboe. Later on, in Caracas, his teachers were Moleiro Moses and Inocente Carreño (from 1954 to 1957). He continued his studies at the Academia Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy, from 1958 to 1964. He also studied conducting with Sir John Barbirolli and Carlo Zecchi in Taormina, Italy and with Bruno Maderna in Salzburg, Austria (1968). He studied composition with Alfred Nieman in London from 1975 to 1977. A deep bond with Francisco Guerrero (in Madrid) led him to explore the constructivist technique of composition. Since 1980 he is dedicated exclusively to composing. Rivas has received commissions from Radio France, the Fifth International Guitar Competition, the Ville d'Antony, France; Order, French Ministry of Culture, the Festival Presence, the Society of Authors and Composers SACEM of France, the Join 2E2M, the Ensemble Aleph and the Societe Francaise de Luth. The Italian composer Antonio Pileggi describes the work of this artist as follows: "His music is an original synthesis of the great occidental traditions and of an association of techniques derived from specific mathematical and geometric structures. The result is an eclecticism that integrates diverse speculative disciplines and a musical creativity both unusual and seductive..." In 2013, Rivas received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of the Arts and Letters) by the French government. Festival Atempo Since 1993, this Festival is dedicated to the international diffusion of outstanding contemporary repertory as well as that of traditional music from all periods of history. Atempo offers a space for the confrontation of thought as well as serious discourse from diverse points of view related to musical creation and interpretation. The Atempo Festival celebrated its 17th anniversary in July 2010 with an audience of more than 4,000 attending the three-day event. Throughout its uninterrupted history of nearly two decades, the Festival has presented 666 musical works of 320 different composers; 102 world premieres of works written especially for the Festival;