A forum for the appreciation of all things related to the classical music of Latin America.
Born in Indiana in 1906, David Van Vactor received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in 1928. He spent the following year in Vienna composing and studying the flute with Josef Niedermeyer, the principal flutist of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He returned to the US and became the first flutist of the Chicago Civic Orchestra. …
Francisco Curt Lange (1903-1997) was a German-born Uruguayan musicologist. He earned a degree in architecture, and also, pursued studies in music at universities in Leipzig, Berlin, and Munich. At the university in Bonn, in 1929 he received a Ph.D. after writing a dissertation on the polyphonic nature of Dutch motets. The following year, the Uruguayan …
For a five-year period, from 1936 to 1941, Leopold Stokowski shared the conductor’s podium of the Philadelphia Orchestra with Eugene Ormandy. However, Stokowski’s constant tinkering with the orchestra, such as his once telling the players to sit on stage wherever they wanted, led to increasing acrimony between the two conductors. In fact, by near the …
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 …
Paul Herman Apel was born in 1882 in the central German city of Gottingen. Departing from Hamburg, Germany, on board the S. S. Pretoria, he arrived in New York City on May 7, 1899. The passenger manifest noted that Apel’s ticket had been purchased by his mother, Antoinette Apel, and that his final destination was …
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 …