Leo Brouwer

Juan Leovigildo "Leo" Brouwer Mesquida (* March 1, 1939 in Havana ) is a Cuban conductor, guitarist, percussionist, composer, arranger and music teacher. He is one of the most important guitar composers. His works include chamber music, symphonies and instrumental concertos. He also composed film scores for acclaimed films such as Like Water for Chocolate (1992) and So Close to Heaven (1995). His musical creations reflect sometimes traditional African music. He collaborated with the guitarist John Williams and Julian Bream. Width recognition, he was also given at Tōru Takemitsu and Hans Werner Henze. Numerous international awards bestowed on him, so in 2001 he was an honorary member of UNESCO and 2010 received the prestigious Ibero-American Tomás Luis de Victoria Prize.

• 3.1 Solo occupations
• 3.2 guitar groups 3.2.1 guitar duo
• 3.2.2 Gitarrenquartett
• 3.2.3 " guitar orchestra"
• 3.2.4 Guitar and String Quartet

• 3.3.1 concerts for guitar / conciertos para guitarra

• 4.1 Solo occupations
• 4.2 Ensemble / Chamber Music 4.2.1 String Quartet
• 4.2.2 Other

• 4.3.1 with Soloists

Biography

Youth, beginnings

He began at the age of 13 years playing the guitar, inspired by listening to flamenco music and encouraged by his father, Juan Brouwer, who also starred with his profession as a doctor himself as an amateur guitar, and his aunt Caridad Mezquida. After the divorce of his parents, he was raised by his grandmother, with whom he came in contact with his famous great-uncle Ernesto Lecuona. His first teacher ( 1953-1954 ) on the guitar was Isaac Nicola, who in turn had studied with Emilio Pujol. Later he attended the Conservatory Carlos Alfredo Peyrellade in Havana.

First compositions

Leo Brouwer so learned the traditional repertoire of the classical guitar and had 17 years with his first public appearance. At this time, his interest in composing already manifested itself, which he initially appropriated self-taught. Among his first works include Music and Suite from 1954. Compositions Preludio (1956) and Fuga No.. 1 (1959 ) were stylistically influenced by Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky.

His further training took place through scholarships in the U.S., where he with Stefan Wolpe, Carl Bamberger and Vincent Persichetti at the Juilliard School of Music and Isadore Freed, Joseph Iadone and Edward Diem duck at the Hartt School, University of Hartford ( 1959-1960 ) studied composition. Brouwer also addressed with experimental tendencies. This is evident for example in the Elogio de la Danza ( homage to the dance), which in contrast to his earlier compositions has a strong dissonant character. Also from the use of Cuban rhythms has taken in this piece largely distance Brouwer. The piece consists of two sets: a Lento and a strong rhythmic ostinato concise. Today it is one of the most popular pieces for guitar and dancers worldwide.

Further phases

In the next phase compositions were all written such canticle and the Concerto No.. 1 for Guitar and Orchestra, in which his employment with serial music, twelve-tone and modal music is clear. He was influenced by modern composers such as Luigi Nono and Iannis Xenakis.

1970 Brouwer played in the first performance of the recital for four musicians El Cimarron part of the Berlin Festival, the guitar. Together with Morton Feldman in 1972, he was a DAAD scholarship in Berlin.

The music from the third phase of his work makes a minimalist impression of what Leo Brouwer describes itself as a development of a modular system. These include El Decameron Negro compositions such as (1981 ) or Hika " In Memorium Toru Takemitsu " (1996).

For the Guitar Competition in Esztergom in Hungary Leo Brouwer wrote the play Blue Skies and Smile, which he with Bálint Bakfark guitar orchestra, which consisted of 200 guitarists aufführte.

Other activities

He has also written technical exercises for the guitar that Estudios Sencillos, worked as an arranger and composed several film scores. In addition to his guitar compositions he wrote chamber music, choral works, a modern ballet pieces for wind ensemble as well as orchestral works.

In addition, Leo Brouwer of 1960 has worked ( at the National Conservatory in Havana from 1961 to 1967 ), a musical advisor for Cuban television and radio until 1961 as deputy director of music at Radio Habana Cuba, professor of composition, was a jury member of several musical competitions, has received several international awards, was a lecturer at the Academy of Arts in Berlin and in 1987 honorary Member of UNESCO; the same year as Isaac Stern and Alain Daniélou. This honor was bestowed already Yehudi Menuhin, Ravi Shankar, Herbert von Karajan and Joan Sutherland.

He was a founding member of the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos, whose music director he has been since 1969. He was here to share with Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanes, Sergio Vitier, the group for Tonexperimente. It set standards in Latin American film and pop music. Brouwer himself has composed 60 pieces, including La última cena ( The Last Supper, 1976), directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Like Water for Chocolate ( Like Water for Chocolate, 1993) and A Walk in the Clouds ( So Close to Heaven, 1995) director Alfonso Arau.

Brouwer conducted orchestras around the world. He toured with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the RAI Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra of Finland and the National Symphony Orchestra Istanbul. He was ten years the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba before and founded and led from 1992 to 2001, the orchestra Cordoba in Spain.

He arranged the original compositions of Scott Joplin's Elite Syncopations and The Entertainer and John Lennon and Paul McCartney's Fool on the Hill.

In April 2003, Brouwer was among a group of prominent Cuban cultural workers who signed one in the newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma published open letter, which was sent to friends of Cuba in the world and international criticism of the human rights policy of the Cuban government as anti-Cuban campaign of vilification rejected: In the weeks before the Supreme Court had condemned Cuba for a known as the " black spring" crackdown 75 critical journalists and civil rights activists to long prison terms, and let three young black Cubans executed after the bloodless failed attempt at a ship hijacking.

Awards

Works for Guitar

Solo occupations

• Exaedros 1
• Paisaje Cubano con lluvia
• Paisaje Cubano con rumba
• Piezas sin Títulos No. 1-3
• Variantes
• Variations on a Piazzolla Tango

Guitar groups

Guitar duo

Guitar Quartet

• Canciones remotas
• Toccata para cuatro o más guitarras
• Toccata
• Paisaje Cubano Con Rumba

" Guitar orchestra"

Guitar and String Quartet

• Quintet for Guitar and String Quartet

Guitar and Orchestra

Concertos for Guitar / para guitarra conciertos

Other works

Solo occupations

Ensemble / Chamber Music

String Quartet

• Ballad for Flute and Strings
• 1961 Cuarteto de cuerdas No. 1, a la memoria de Bela Bártok
• Cuarteto de cuerdas No. 2
• Cuarteto de cuerdas No. 3
• Demeter Prelude

Other

Works for Orchestra

Orchestra with Soloist

Choir

• Canciones Amatorias (para coro mixto, sobre textos de Federico García Lorca y José Hernández ) ( SATB choir )

Film Music

Recordings

• De Bach A Los Beatles ( EGREM )
• La obra de guitarrística Leo Brouwer. Vol I. Brouwer por Brouwer. ( EGREM )
• La obra de guitarrística Leo Brouwer. Vol II Brouwer intérprete. ( EGREM )
• La obra de guitarrística Leo Brouwer. Vol III. Re - creaciones. ( EGREM )
• La obra de guitarrística Leo Brouwer. Vol IV para guitarra y orquesta Conciertos. ( EGREM )
• La obra de guitarrística Leo Brouwer. Vol V. Brouwer por los maestros Rey Guerra y Joaquín Clerch. ( EGREM )
• La obra de guitarrística Leo Brouwer. Vol VI. Presencia en el Festival Internacional de guitarra ... ( EGREM )
• La obra de guitarrística Leo Brouwer. Vol VII Ensambles con guitarras. ( EGREM )
• La obra de guitarrística Leo Brouwer. Vol VIII Actuaciones memorables. ( EGREM )
• Leo Brouwer Collection Vol 1-6
• Antología selecta, Vols. 1-3. ( EGREM - Parnaso )

Trivia

The heavy- metal guitarist Randy Rhoads cites the sixth of Estudios Sencillos as an introduction to "Diary of a Madman " Ozzy Osbourne on eponymous album.