His work explores ensemble interaction and communication through the use of openness and guided improvisation. His compositions include text scores for open instrumentation as well as works for chamber and rock instruments.
Active in the Bay Area experimental scene, he performs solo and with his own ensemble, the Rodrigo Barriga Quartet. He has released two albums containing recordings of his compositions, Silere/Continuo (2019), and Quartet (2020).
He participated in the Performer-Composer Residency at the Westben Centre for Connection & Creativity in Ontario, Canada in 2020 and is one of the selected candidates for the 2022 season of artist residencies at Blue Mountain Center in New York.
His work has been performed by the spontaneous network for improvised music in Vienna, the Yarn/Wire ensemble in New York, and his own ensemble in Mexico and the United States.
Barriga holds an MA in Composition from Mills College, Oakland, where he studied with Zeena Parkins, James Fei, and others; and is currently a student in the DMA in Composition program at the University of California Santa Cruz, where he has studied with Michelle Lou and Ben Leeds Carson. He has taught as an adjunct lecturer at the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Ciudad de México at Mexico State.
As an audio engineer, Barriga produces his own recordings and has worked with artists like GRTSCH, DLD, Matisse, Miguel Bosé, and Fernando Delgadillo. From 2016 to 2017, he served as studio assistant at the Sony Music Recording Studios in Mexico City.