Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida (born March 1, 1939) is a Cuban composer,

conductor Conductor or conduction may refer to: Music * Conductor (music), a person who leads a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra. * ''Conductor'' (album), an album by indie rock band The Comas * Conduction, a type of structured free improvisation ...

, and classical guitarist. He is a Member of Honour of the International Music Council.

Family

He is the grandson of Cuban composer Ernestina Lecuona y Casado. His great-uncle, Ernesto Lecuona, composed " La Malagueña" and his second cousin, Margarita Lecuona, composed " Babalú", which was popularized by Cuban musician and actor Desi Arnaz.

Music career

Early years

Brouwer was born in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

. When he was 13, he began classical guitar with the encouragement of his father, who was an amateur guitarist. His teacher was

Isaac Nicola Isaac Nicola Romero (11 April 1916 in Havana, Cuba – 14 July 1997) was a prominent Cuban guitarist and one of the founders of the modern Cuban Guitar School. He was also brother of Clara (Cuqui) Nicola. Academic formation Isaac Nicola beg ...

, who was a student of Emilio Pujol, who was himself a student of Francisco Tárrega. At age 17 he performed publicly for the first time and began composing. Brouwer went to the United States to study music at the Hartt College of Music of the University of Hartford, and later at the Juilliard School, where he studied under Vincent Persichetti and took composition classes with Stefan Wolpe. In 1970 Brouwer played in the premiere of '' El Cimarrón'' by Hans Werner Henze in Berlin. Together with Morton Feldman, he was awarded a 1972 scholarship by the DAAD (

German Academic Exchange Service The German Academic Exchange Service, or DAAD (german: Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), was founded in 1925 and is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation. Organisation ''DAAD'' is a ...

) and to work as a guest composer and lecturer at the Academy of Science and Arts of Berlin. In Germany Brouwer also recorded a number of LPs for Deutsche Grammophon.

Composing and performing

In his early compositions, Brouwer remained close to the rhythms of Cuban music, while later he was drawn to aleatoric music. During the 1960s and 70s, he became interested in the music of

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

composers such as Luigi Nono and Iannis Xenakis, using indeterminacy in works such as ''Sonograma I''. Other works from this period include the guitar pieces ''Canticum'' (1968), ''La espiral eterna'' (1971), ''Parábola'' (1973) and ''Tarantos'' (1974). More recently, Brouwer's works have leaned towards

tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is cal ...

and modality. The solo guitar works ''El Decamerón Negro'' (1981), ''Paisaje cubano con campanas'' (1986), and the ''Sonata'' (1990; for Julian Bream) exemplify this tendency. His playing career ended in the early 1980s due to an injury to a tendon in his right hand middle finger. Brouwer has written for guitar, piano, and percussion, and has composed orchestral works, ballet, and music for over one hundred movies, including the film '' Like Water for Chocolate''. For a guitar competition in Hungary in 1979, he wrote a composition that employed 200 guitarists. He is known for a series of studies called the Etudes Simples. Brouwer has also transcribed Beatles songs for classical guitar. He has performed and recorded works by Sylvano Bussotti, Hans Werner Henze, Maurice Ohana, Cristóbal Halffter, Leni Alexander, Cornelius Cardew, and

Heitor Villa-Lobos Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5, 1887November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the ...

Other activities

He has been a conductor for many symphony orchestras, including the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Cordoba Symphony in Spain. Brouwer is involved in the Concurso y Festival Internacional de Guitarra de la Habana (Havana International Guitar Festival and Competition). He frequently travels to attend guitar festivals throughout the world, and especially to other Latin American countries. Brouwer, according to the composer himself, has never been a member of the Communist Party of Cuba, but has nevertheless held a number of official posts in Cuba, including with the music department of the

Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry Cuban may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Cuba, a country in the Caribbean * Cubans, people from Cuba, or of Cuban descent ** Cuban exile, a person who left Cuba for political reasons, or a descendant thereof * Cuban citizen, a pe ...

. Brouwer is the great-uncle of Al Jourgensen of Ministry fame. Brouwer is the brother of Jourgensen's maternal grandfather.

Selected compositions

Chamber and solo instrumental * 2009 ''

Mitología de las Aguas ''Mitología de las Aguas'', or ''Mythology of the waters'', is a composition for flute and guitar by the Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, written in 2009 for the German-Venezuelan guitarist and composer Sef Albertz. Brouwer defines this work as his fi ...

'' (''Sonata No. 1 for flute and guitar'') Film scores * 1968: '' Lucía'' * 1992: '' Like Water for Chocolate (film)''

References

Other sources

*Andy Daly,
Leo Brouwer
'. Music Web International, accessed June 9, 2011 * *

) Documentaries * ''Leo Brouwer–Irakere'' (1978), written and directed by Jose Padron * ''Leo Brouwer'' (2000), written and directed by Jose Padron {{DEFAULTSORT:Brouwer, Leo 1939 births 20th-century classical composers 20th-century guitarists 20th-century male musicians 21st-century classical composers 21st-century guitarists 21st-century male musicians Composers for the classical guitar Cuban classical composers Cuban classical guitarists Cuban film score composers Deutsche Grammophon artists Juilliard School alumni Latin Grammy Award winners Latin music composers Living people Male classical composers Male film score composers Cuban male guitarists People from Havana Pupils of Vincent Persichetti University of Hartford Hartt School alumni Zoho Music artists