The Casals Festival
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The Casals Festival
The Casals Festival is a classical music event celebrated every year in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in honor of classical musician Pablo Casals. Background The festival was founded in 1956 by Pablo Casals. It was promoted by Teodoro Moscoso and David Ogilvy with the objectives of changing the image of Puerto Rico and promoting tourism to the island during off-peak tourism time. After implementing Operation Bootstrap, Teodoro Moscoso employed advertiser David Ogilvy to propagate the image of a people engaged in a cultural renaissance. Teodoro Moscoso's decisive actions at critical junctures (such as his success in pushing tax exemptions and tourism in the late 1940s) and his personal persuasiveness, as with Pablo Casals, who at the age of 80 was persuaded to establish the Casals Festival at San Juan. Pablo Casals Pablo Casals (1876–1973), was born in Spain to a Puerto Rican mother Pilar Defilló. He was a cello player and a supporter of the Spanish Republican Government and as such ...
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Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, (27 March 192727 April 2007) was a Russian cellist and conductor. He is considered by many to be the greatest cellist of the 20th century. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was well known for both inspiring and commissioning new works, which enlarged the cello repertoire more than any cellist before or since. He inspired and premiered over 100 pieces, forming long-standing friendships and artistic partnerships with composers including Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Henri Dutilleux, Witold Lutosławski, Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, Norbert Moret, Andreas Makris, Leonard Bernstein, Aram Khachaturian and Benjamin Britten. Rostropovich was internationally recognized as a staunch advocate of human rights, and was awarded the 1974 Award of the International League of Human Rights. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya and had two daughters, Olga and Elena ...
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Luis A
Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic in Portugal, but common in Brazil. Origins The Germanic name (and its variants) is usually said to be composed of the words for "fame" () and "warrior" () and hence may be translated to ''famous warrior'' or "famous in battle". According to Dutch onomatologists however, it is more likely that the first stem was , meaning fame, which would give the meaning 'warrior for the gods' (or: 'warrior who captured stability') for the full name.J. van der Schaar, ''Woordenboek van voornamen'' (Prisma Voornamenboek), 4e druk 1990; see also thLodewijs in the Dutch given names database Modern forms of the name are the German name Ludwig and the Dutch form Lodewijk. and the other Iberian forms more closely resemble the French name Louis, a derivat ...
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Justino Díaz
Justino Díaz (born January 29, 1940) is a Puerto Rican operatic bass-baritone. In 1963, Díaz won an annual contest held at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, becoming the first Puerto Rican to obtain such an honor and as a consequence, made his Metropolitan debut in October 1963 in Verdi's ''Rigoletto'' as Monterone. Early years Díaz was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the capital of the island, but lived and was raised in the town of Cataño. He attended Robinson Elementary School where, at the age of 8, he started to participate in the school's activities as a singer. In his first school play, when he was 10 years old, he sang the song "Old Black Joe", which became his favorite. After finishing his primary education, Díaz attended the University of Puerto Rico High School in Río Piedras. While in high school, he took singing classes and participated in various presentations around the island. Díaz joined the choir of the University of Puerto Rico, under the direction o ...
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Elías López-Sobá
Elias is the Greek equivalent of Elijah ( he, אֵלִיָּהוּ‎ ''ʾĒlīyyāhū''; Syriac: ܐܠܝܐ ''Eliyā''; Arabic: الیاس Ilyās/Elyās), a prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the 9th century BC, mentioned in several holy books. Due to Elias' role in the scriptures and to many later associated traditions, the name is used as a personal name in numerous languages. Variants * Éilias Irish * Elia Italian, English * Elias Norwegian * Elías Icelandic * Éliás Hungarian * Elías Spanish * Eliáš, Elijáš Czech * Elias, Eelis, Eljas Finnish * Elias Danish, German, Swedish * Elias Portuguese * Elias, Iliya () Persian * Elias, Elis Swedish * Elias, Elyas Ethiopian * Elias, Elyas Philippines * Eliasz Polish * Élie French * Elija Slovene * Elijah English, Hebrew * Elis Welsh * Elisedd Welsh * Eliya (එලියා) Sinhala * Eliyas (Ілияс) Kazakh * Eliyahu, Eliya (אֵלִיָּהוּ, אליה) Biblical Hebrew, Hebrew * Elyās, Ilyās, Eliya (, ) ...
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Marta Casals Istomin
Marta Casals Istomin (born November 2, 1936), who uses the surnames of her first husband, Pablo Casals, and her second husband, Eugene Istomin, is a musician from Puerto Rico, and the former president of the Manhattan School of Music. She served as artistic director of the Kennedy Center from 1980 to 1990. Early years Casals Istomin was born Marta Montáñez Martínez in Humacao, Puerto Rico, to a family of amateur musicians. As a child she was influenced by musical surroundings which were instrumental in the development of her love for music. She received her primary education in her hometown. Her uncle, Rafael Montañez, taught her the fundamentals of the violin at the age of six. After she finished her primary education, she attended the Marymount School, New York, for four years. Pablo Casals After graduating high school, Montañez was awarded a scholarship to attend the Mannes College of Music in New York City to study cello. In 1952, her uncle Rafael took the 15-year ...
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Elías López Sobá
Elías López Sobá (born in 1927) is a Puerto Rican classical music pianist and educator. Together with musical director Justino Diaz, Elias López Sobá has been co-directing the annual Casals Festival since 2010. Some sources considered him one of the most outstanding pianists and instrumentalists in 20th century Puerto Rico. Early years López-Sobá was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in 1927. Training López-Sobá attended the Longy School of Music in Massachusetts, graduating in 1951. He also studied at the Bennington College of the University of Vermont, where he graduated with a Master of Arts. In 1953 he obtained a Fulbright scholarship which allowed him to continue studies in piano at the Academy of the music of Vienna, under Alfred Brendel and Zubin Mehta and where graduated magna cum laude, winning the first medal in the international music competition in 1955. He then moved to Italy to enhance his piano skills under Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. In 1961 he returne ...
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Odón Alonso
Odón Alonso Ordás (28 February 1925 – 21 February 2011) was a Spanish conductor and composer, best known for his film scores. Alonso was born at La Bañeza, León, Spain. He studied in Madrid, Siena, Salzburg and Vienna. His first engagements as a conductor date back to the years between 1952 and 1956 when he was performing with the orchestra and chorus of the Spanish National Radio station. In 1960 he took on the position of principal conductor at the Philharmonic Orchestra of Madrid; between 1968 and 1984, Alonso was musical director of the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Spanish Broadcasting (''Orquesta Sinfónica de Radio Televisión Española''). From 1986 until 1994 he conducted the Symphonic Orchestra of Puerto Rico. He died in Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest citi ...
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Jorge Mester
Jorge Mester (born April 10, 1935, Mexico City) is a Mexican conductor of Hungarian ancestry. He has served as the artistic director for the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Veracruz, since it was founded in 2014. Biography He studied conducting with Jean Morel at the Juilliard School in New York City, and worked with Leonard Bernstein at the Berkshire Music Center and with Albert Wolff. In 1955 he made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico and in 1960 made his opera debut with '' Salome'' at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Mester became music director of the Louisville Orchestra in 1967 and served in the post until 1979. In this time he gave over 200 world premieres of works commissioned by the orchestra. From 1970 to 1990, he was music director of the Aspen Music Festival, and there founded the Aspen Chamber Symphony. He became music director of the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra in 1984. His most recent contract extension had been through 2012, but in ...
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Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', ''Polish Requiem'', ''Anaklasis'' and ''Utrenja''. Penderecki's ''oeuvre'' includes four operas, eight symphonies and other orchestral pieces, a variety of instrumental concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as well as chamber and instrumental works''.'' Born in Dębica, Penderecki studied music at Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Music in Kraków. After graduating from the Academy, he became a teacher there and began his career as a composer in 1959 during the Warsaw Autumn festival. His ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'' for string orchestra and the choral work ''St. Luke Passion'' have received popular acclaim. His first opera, ''The Devils of Loudun'', was not immediately successful. In the mid-1970s, Penderecki became a pr ...
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Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi or Jehudi (Hebrew: יהודי, endonym for Jew) is a common Hebrew name: * Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999), violinist and conductor ** Yehudi Menuhin School, a music school in Surrey, England ** Who's Yehoodi?, a catchphrase referring to the violinist * Yehudi Wyner (born 1929), composer and pianist * Jehudi Ashmun (1794–1828), religious leader and social reformer Other uses * Yehudi lights See also * Yahud (other) * Yehuda (other) * Yuda (other), / Juda (other) / Judah (other) * Jew (word) The English term ''Jew'' originates in the Biblical Hebrew word ''Yehudi'', meaning "from the Kingdom of Judah". It passed into Greek as ''Ioudaios'' and Latin as ''Iudaeus'', which evolved into the Old French ''giu'' after the letter "d" wa ...
{{disambiguation, given names ...
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John Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli ( Giovanni Battista Barbirolli; 2 December 189929 July 1970) was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 and conducted for the rest of his life. Earlier in his career he was Arturo Toscanini's successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943. He was also chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961 to 1967, and was a guest conductor of many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with all of which he made recordings. Born in London of Italian and French parentage, Barbirolli grew up in a family of professional musicians. After starting out as a cellist, he was given the chance to conduct, from 1926 with the British National Opera Company, and then with Covent Garden's touring company. On ...
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