Waldemar Henrique da Costa Pereira (February 15, 1905 – March 29, 1995) was a Brazilian pianist and composer. Waldemar Henrique was born in

Belém do Pará Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará) often called Belém of Pará, is a Brazilian city, capital and largest city of the state of Pará in t ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, of mixed Portuguese and indigenous parentage. After losing his mother early in life, he went to

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

with this father, returning to

in 1918. Then he began travelling through the Amazon Rainforest, and started to become acquainted with amazon culture and folklore that would later be significant on his musical work. The first successful work he composed was ''Minha Terra (My Land)'', written in 1923. In 1929 he studied on the Conservatório Carlos Gomes. His family was against his musical career, and his father insisted him to give it up by employing him on a bank. He moved to

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

in 1933, where he studied piano, composition, orchestration and conduction. His works have as main themes the amazon, indigenous, northeastern and afro-Brazilian folklore.Text translated from the Portuguese Wikipedia :pt:Waldemar henrique

Notes

1905 births 1995 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century male musicians Brazilian classical composers Brazilian male composers Brazilian classical pianists Male classical composers Male classical pianists People from Belém {{Brazil-composer-stub