Rubén Colón Tarrats (b. 1940) is a Puerto Rican

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 ...

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

player and band director from

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce ( , , ) is a city and a Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The most populated city outside the San Juan, Puerto Rico, San Juan metropolitan area, Ponce was founded on August 12, 1692Some publ ...

. He also conducted the

Banda Municipal de Ponce The Ponce Municipal Band (Spanish: ''Banda Municipal de Ponce''), also known as ''Centenaria Banda Municipal de Ponce'', is the band of the municipality of Ponce, Puerto Rico. The band is the oldest continuously-performing band in the Caribbean ...

for ten years. He received his music training at Escuela Libre de Música de Ponce, Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico, and Temple University College of Music, and was a music professor at

Ponce High School The Ponce High School is public educational institution in Ponce, Puerto Rico, offering grades nine through twelve. The school's main building is a historic structure located on Cristina Street, in the Ponce Historic Zone. From its beginning t ...

, Instituto de Musica Juan Morel Campos, and Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Puerto Rico. During a music career that spanned half a century, he directed over a dozen choirs, composed over 200 works of music, founded music institutes and music festivals, directed numerous orchestras, presented concerts spanning the

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, and was president of the Puerto Rican Association of Choir Directors. Upon his retirement from active music life, he was honored by many artists, educators, and politicians, and was also honored by the

Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña The ''Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña'' (), or ICP for short, is an institution of the Government of Puerto Rico responsible for the establishment of the cultural policies required in order to study, preserve, promote, enrich, and diffuse ...

and the Ponce Municipal Government.

Early years

Rubén Colón Tarrats was born on 9 March 1940 in

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, while his parents, both

Puerto Ricans Puerto Ricans (), most commonly known as Puerto Rico#Etymology, Boricuas, but also occasionally referred to as '':es:Anexo:Gentilicios de Puerto Rico#Lista general, Borinqueños'', '':es:Anexo:Gentilicios de Puerto Rico#Lista general, Borincan ...

, were visiting relatives in

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. His parents were Isaac Colón and Luz María Tarrats, both from Ponce. His family, including little Ruben Colón Tarrats, returned to Ponce before Colón Tarrats was a year old and he subsequently started his

grade school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

in the public schools of the Ciudad Señorial.

Training

Colón Tarrats studied music at Ponce's Escuela Libre de Música under Emilio Alvarado, Librado Net, and Rafael Franco. After graduating from

, he entered Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico (UIA) where majored in music and learned music composition, choir conducting, and how to play the

, among various other music studies. He joined the university choir and sang first bass in a group called Interamerican Concert Singers. He became associate director of said Singers group and toured the

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, and

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. He graduated from UIA in 1963 with a

Bachelor of Music A Bachelor of Music (BMus; sometimes conferred as Bachelor of Musical Arts) is an academic degree awarded by a college, university, or conservatory upon completion of a program of study in music. The degree may be awarded for performance, music ed ...

and entered a

Master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

program in Music at

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist ministe ...

, where he was a student of David L. Stone, founder of Temple University's Music College. At Temple, he was a member of the Opera and Concert Choir. He graduated from Temple in 1965 with an

M.Mus. The Master of Music (MM or MMus) is, as an academic title, the first graduate degree in music awarded by universities and conservatories. The MM combines advanced studies in an applied area of specialization (usually performance in singing or i ...

degree.

Music career

Upon graduating from Temple, he joined the

Puerto Rico Department of Education The Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDOE; ) is one of five jurisdiction-wide public education systems in the United States, with Hawaii, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa being the others. The PRDOE is the state education ...

as a music teacher and school choir director in Ponce, where he taught at various Ponce public high schools and also lead the schools' choirs. While a music teacher, he created the ''Octeto de Ponce'', a musical group of eight singers. He also joined the ''Vocal Instrumental Ars Nova'' and the ''Coral Polifónica de Ponce.'' During 1980 and 1981, he co-founded the Instituto de Música Juan Morel Campos where he also became professor of choir and

music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "Elements of music, ...

. Among his students are Marilucy Rodríguez (director of Universidad de Puerto Rico-Ponce Choir), Alexander Rodríguez (director of Coro de la Academia Cristo Rey), Dennis Valdés-Brito Díaz (director of the Instituto de Música Juan Morel Campos and Universidad Interamericana-Ponce choirs), Víctor Quiles (director

Choir), Hugo Adames (Director Coro de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Puerto Rico Choir), José Rafael Morales and Mayte Morales Frau (co-directors of La Coral Municipal de Ponce). From 1983 to 1999 he was director of the ''Coral Polifónica de Ponce'' and while under his direction, ''Coral Polifónica'' competed at the ''Festival Coral America Canta'' in

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, in 1983 and, in 1999, at

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, in

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. In 1993-1994 he was choir director of the ''Coro de la Universidad Interamericana'' in Ponce and from 1994 to 1995 he was president of the Puerto Rican Association of Choir Directors. In 1994, he joined the teaching staff at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Puerto Rico (PUCPR) and became the school's choir director. Under his leadership, the choir at the PUCPR recorded its first DVD of Christmas carols. In 2003, former Ponce mayor

Rafael Cordero Santiago Rafael Cordero Santiago (24 October 1942 – 17 January 2004), better known as "Churumba", was the Mayor of Ponce, Puerto Rico, Ponce, Puerto Rico, from 1989 to 2004. Many considered him as a synonym of Ponce, being baptized as "El León Mayor ...

named him director of the

, an orchestra that he conducted until November 2013. In 2006 he co-founded ''Festival Internacional de Coros “Descubre a Puerto Rico y su Música Coral”'', and international musical festival that takes places yearly in Ponce. In 2009, he created the ''Coral Municipal de Ponce'' for the Ponce Municipal Government, directing it until 2013. Also in 2009, he was a

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting scientist, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic fo ...

of music at the

Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo The Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD) () is a public university system in Dominican Republic, with its flagship campus in Ciudad Universitaria (lit. University City) neighborhood of Santo Domingo and regional campuses in many citi ...

in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

promoted by the United States Embassy in

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Honors and legacy

Upon his retirement as director of the Banda Municipal de Ponce and the ''Coral Municipal de Ponce'' in November 2013, the municipality of Ponce honored him with a commemorative celebration at Teatro La Perla, attended by over 1,000 guests. The commemorative sketch for the occasion was a work by

Wichie Torres Wichie Torres (29 March 1952 – 7 February 2020) was a Puerto Rican oil canvas painter. He was an exponent of the costumbrismo movement. He is also the first person in the Central America and Caribbean region to have ever undergone two indepe ...

. On 13 December 2013 Colón Tarrats was recognized by the Municipality of Ponce as one of its illustrious citizens. He is recognized at the Ponce Tricentennial Park for his contributions to music. In 2015, he was also honored by the

.''Primer Festival Coral festeja sesenta años del ICP.''
Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. ''circa'' 1 April 2015.

Works

Colón Tarrats has authored nearly 200 chorals many of which are about Puerto Rican

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

, among which are several by Rafael Hernández Marín including El Cumbanchero, Silencio, Capullito de Alelí, Preciosa, Lamento Borincano, Romance, y Ahora Seremos Felices. * Fantasía de Navidad, a musical (1986) * Cantares Navideños * Padre Nuestro * Guakia Baba * Shema Yisrael * Salmo 46 * Dios mi Dios * Pueblo de Israel * Adonai Roi * Oración de San Francisco * Regalo de Reyes * Ruiseñor * Navidad Borincana * Plegaria de Navidad * Tributo Musical a Puerto Rico * 25 de Enero

Notes

References

External links

'' ¡Canta a la esperanza el Festival! Sandra Torres Guzmán. La Perla del Sur. 21 March 2012. Accessed 10 May 2016.''