Luis Herrera de la Fuente

Luis Herrera de la Fuente ( born April 25, 1916 in Mexico City) is a Mexican conductor, violinist and composer.

Life

De la Fuente studied at the Music Faculty of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México ( UNAM) composition with Estanislao Mejía and José F. Vázquez, piano with Carlos Santos, violin with Luis G. Saloma and singing with David Silva. He also took private piano lessons with Carlos del Castillo and composition with Rodolfo Halffter. Training as a conductor, he began in Mexico and Italy with Sergiu Celibidache and put them at Hermann Scherchen in Zurich continued.

He then worked at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in the field of folklore and music of the colonial period and assisted music programs on radio and television. In 1945 he founded the Orquesta de Cámara de Radio Universidad, 1952, the Orquestra de Cámara de Bellas Artes; 1958 to 1976 he conducted the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional, with whom he performed in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Besides his work as a conductor, he was director of the Festival Internacional de Música of Morelia. He founded the Coro Nacional de México and 1992 Foundation with the purpose to record all the symphonic works of Mexico on sound recordings. In 1995 he founded the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil of the state of Veracruz, 2002, the Instituto Superior de Música of Veracruz. He was appointed Director of the Orquestra emerito Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México, 2005.

1962 de la Fuente was on the jury of the first Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, in 1964 the jury of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In 1971 he became a Knight of the Belgian Order of Leopold. In Mexico, among many other awards, he received the 2005 Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes. The Universidad de las Américas and the University of Oklahoma awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Works

  • Sonata para piano, 1946
  • Preludio a Cuauhtémoc, 1960
  • Sonata para cello solo, 2004
  • Divertimento No.1 for chamber orchestra
  • Dos movimientos para orquesta
  • Sonata para cuerdas
  • Cuarteto para cuerdas
  • Divertimento for String Orchestra String Quartet and obbligato
  • Fronteras, Ballet
  • La Estrella y la Sirena, Ballet
International Tchaikovsky Competition Order of Leopold (Belgium) Integrated Authority File
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