Ricardo Castillo (composer)
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Ricardo Castillo (October 1, 1891,
Quetzaltenango Quetzaltenango (, also known by its Maya name Xelajú or Xela ) is a municipality and namesake department in western Guatemala. The city is located in a mountain valley at an elevation of above sea level at its lowest part. It may reach above ...
— May 27, 1966,
Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...
) was a Guatemalan
composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...
.


Life and career

Born in the city of
Quetzaltenango Quetzaltenango (, also known by its Maya name Xelajú or Xela ) is a municipality and namesake department in western Guatemala. The city is located in a mountain valley at an elevation of above sea level at its lowest part. It may reach above ...
in the western highlands of
Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...
, Ricardo Castillo is the younger brother of composer of Jesús Castillo. Demonstrating a talent and love for music as a child, his mother sent him to France to study the subject in 1906 at the age of 14. He remained in Europe for the next 16 years. There he studied violin in Paris with Narcisse-Augustin Lefort and
harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...
with Paul Vidal. Eventually his studies moved away from the violin entirely and he focused solely on music composition; publishing his first compositions for solo piano during this period in Paris. In 1918 Castillo married the French pianist Georgette Contoux Quante who had graduated with honors from the
Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), or the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (; CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue Jean Ja ...
where she had studied under Alfred Cortot. The couple moved to Guatemala in 1922 and two years later Castillo joined the faculty of the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Guatemala City as a professor of harmony, music history, and composition; a position he maintained until his retirement in 1960. In 1948 Castillo submitted entries under
pseudonyms A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's ow ...
in all three categories of the Science, Literature and Arts National Contest in Guatemala; and won all three prizes. He won the arts prize again in 1951 with his ''Eight piano Preludes''.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castillo, Ricardo 1891 births 1966 deaths Guatemalan classical composers 20th-century classical composers Male classical composers 20th-century male composers People from Quetzaltenango 20th-century Guatemalan musicians