A forum for the appreciation of all things related to the classical music of Latin America.
This is great news! The University of Kansas has organized their first Latin American Art Music Festival! I’m writing about this because I’m very excited to be involved. Over the course of the five-day festival, I’ll be having a busy schedule, including talking to the KU entrepreneurship class about the business of music, conducting a …
A pioneer may, in fact, be someone who does not or did not garner very much attention at all. It could be a person who, though not necessarily a leader or prominent individual, nevertheless made notable contributions or advancements in his or her field. Leila Fern Thompson was such a person. While working from the …
We recently returned from Quito, Ecuador, where we met with several of our composers and other musicians. But as we walked around that city, it was difficult not to notice how the city streets were seemingly being dominated by Chinese cars. In fact, on one day, on our way walking to a nearby shopping center, …
Fifty-nine years ago today, on Sunday, April 23, 1961, at 8:30 p.m., the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet presented a program at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress that consisted of four works that had been written by Latin American composers. All of the works performed were world premieres, and of the four, two had …
In 1929, opposed to the rise of folkloristic nationalism in Argentinean music (which would later become exemplified in the works of Alberto Ginastera), five composers founded the Grupo Renovación (Renovation Group) in Buenos Aires. Through its concertizing and publishing activities, the group advocated a deep association of that country’s composers with contemporaneous European trends, such …