Jacqueline Nova Sondag (1935–1975) was a
Colombian musician, author and composer. She is often cited as having initiated Colombia's
electroacoustic music
Electroacoustic music is a genre of popular and Western art music in which composers use technology to manipulate the timbres of acoustic sounds, sometimes by using audio signal processing, such as reverb or harmonizing, on acoustical instr ...
al practices.
Life
Jacqueline Nova Sondag was born 6 January 1935, in
Ghent
Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest i ...
, Belgium. Her father was visiting Belgium from
Bucaramanga
Bucaramanga () is the capital and largest city of the department of Santander, Colombia. Bucaramanga has the fifth-largest economy by GDP in Colombia, has the lowest unemployment rate and has the ninth-largest population in the country, with ...
, Colombia, to study to be an engineer, where he met Jacqueline's mother. Upon his finishing his studies, Nova's family moved back to
Bucaramanga
Bucaramanga () is the capital and largest city of the department of Santander, Colombia. Bucaramanga has the fifth-largest economy by GDP in Colombia, has the lowest unemployment rate and has the ninth-largest population in the country, with ...
where she spent her childhood. In 1955 she moved to
Bogotá
Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the largest ...
. Nova's mid-high social class in 20th century Colombia traditionally prescribed women learn to play either piano, guitar, or sing in order to be considered respectable ladies. Nova began learning piano when she was seven.
In 1958 was admitted to the National Conservatory of Music National University for piano. She appeared in performances at the Conservatory as a soloist and accompanist. She studied under
Fabio González Zuleta and with
Blas Emilio Atehortua for contemporary music. In 1967 she was the first woman composer to graduate with a Masters from the conservatory.
She then traveled to Buenos Aires on a scholarship from the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella for further studies in composition at
Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios.
There she studied with
Luigi Nono
Luigi Nono (; 29 January 1924 – 8 May 1990) was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music.
Biography
Early years
Nono, born in Venice, was a member of a wealthy artistic family; his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono b ...
,
Alberto Ginastera
Alberto Evaristo Ginastera (; April 11, 1916June 25, 1983) was an Argentinian composer of classical music. He is considered to be one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas.
Biography
Ginastera was born in Bue ...
,
Gerardo Gandini,
Francisco Kröpfl
Francisco Kröpfl (26 February 1931 – 15 December 2021) was an Argentinian composer and music theorist.
Kröpfl was born in Timișoara, Romania into a family of Danube Swabians. He studied with Juan Carlos Paz.
In the decade of the 1950s he ...
,
Francisco Zumaque
Francisco Zumaqué Gómez (born 18 July 1945) is a Colombian musician and composer of rich Colombo-Caribbean rhythms. Defined as a contemporary musician with great part of his compositions oriented to Electroacoustic music, doing important resear ...
and others.
Nova died 13 June 1975 in Bogotá from bone cancer.
Work
After studying at CLAEM, Nova became interested in interdisciplinary experimentation with unaccompanied tape. Collaborations with other fields such as visual arts, theatre, and cinema led to a large amount of experimental and graphic elements in her scores.
Here she composed her first electroacoustic composition, called ''
Opposition-Fusion (1968)''.
Nova's work has been played by orchestras such as the
Venezuela Symphony Orchestra
The Venezuela Symphony Orchestra ( es, Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela) is an orchestra in Venezuela, founded in 1930. They perform at the Ríos Reyna concert-hall in the Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex.
See also
*Venezuelan music
Severa ...
, the
Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, and the
Washington National Symphony Orchestra at venues such as the
Latin American Music Festival
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and the Third Annual
Symposium of American Music in Virginia, USA. Her works have been performed in
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in ...
,
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
, Spain,
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 ...
, United States,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...
,
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
, the
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...
, France, Germany, and Austria.
Nova's work has been issued through media including radio, books, periodicals, film, conferences and concerts. In 1970 she gave a lecture and concert for the Conference on Electronic Music at the Instituto Colombo-Alemán (Colombia-German Institute) as well as the V Music Festival in
Medellín
Medellín ( or ), officially the Municipality of Medellín ( es, Municipio de Medellín), is the second-largest city in Colombia, after Bogotá, and the capital of the department of Antioquia. It is located in the Aburrá Valley, a central re ...
. She wrote "The Wonderful World of Machinery" for the magazine ''Bogota Nova No. 4'' in 1966, and "Reasonable Orders Conscious and Unconscious" (1967) and "An Aberrant Phenomenon" (1969) for the newspaper ''El Espectador''.
Between 1969 and 1970, Nova directed ''Asimetrías'', a
Radiodifusora Nacional radio series which presented 22 sessions of new music works and analysis.
In 1970 she established the New Music Group to perform works by living composers, with special emphasis on Latin America, but because of her health, the ensemble had limited engagements.
Awards and honors
*Festival de Música de Caracas Award for Chamber Orchestra 1966 for ''12 Mobile''
*Third prize in the Composition of the Colombian Institute of Culture 1977 for "Pitecanthropus" for symphony orchestra, voices and electronic sounds
*Posthumous recognition from the Colombian Institute of Culture
Compositions
Nova composed for multiple genres including orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments. She also wrote works for popular theater and film soundtracks including ''Machu Picchu'' and
Francisco Norden
Francisco Norden (born 9 November 1929) is a Colombian film director, screenwriter, editor and producer born in Brussels from an Austrian father and a Colombian mother. He has directed eight films between 1963 and 2005. His film ''Cóndores no e ...
's film ''
The Guerrilla Priest Camilo
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...
''. She also composed for
Son et lumière projects. Selected works include:
*''Fantasy'' for piano
*''Little Suite'' for string quartet
*''Transitions'' for piano (1964-1965)
*''Asymmetries'' for flute, cymbals, and tam-tams
*''Opposition-Fusion'' for tape (1968)
*''Echos I'' for piano and electronic sounds
*''12 Mobile'' for symphony orchestra (1965)
*''Metamorphosis III'' for symphony orchestra (1965)
*''Music for Macbeth'' for chamber group
*''Julius Caesar'' for theater
*''Hiroshima'', oratorio, text by
Dora Castellanos
Dora may stand for:
*Dora (given name)
Places United States
* Dora, Alabama
*Dora, Arkansas
*Dora, Missouri
*Dora, New Mexico
* Dora, Oregon
*Dora, Pennsylvania
*Mount Dora, Florida
Other countries
*Lake Dora (Tasmania)
*Lake Dora (Western ...
, for symphony orchestra, countertenor, contralto, 16 female voices, choir, and tape
*''Omaggio a Catullus'' (''Homage to Catullus'') for spoken voices, piano, harmonium, percussion, and electronic sounds
*''HK 70''
*''Creation of the Earth''
Performances and Recent Presentations
In 2019, the
Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston presented a
exhibitionaround Nova's 1972 work ''Creación de la Tierra''.
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nova, Jacqueline
1935 births
1975 deaths
20th-century classical composers
20th-century women composers
Colombian composers
Women classical composers
Women in electronic music