Cláudio Franco de Sá Santoro (23 November 1919 – 27 March 1989) was an internationally renowned

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 ...

ian composer, conductor and

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

ist.

Biography

Early life

A native of Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, Santoro started to study

and

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

as a child. His efforts made the Government of Amazonas send him to study at the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

Career

At the age of 18, he was already teaching

at the conservatory. He was a pupil of

Hans-Joachim Koellreutter Hans-Joachim Koellreutter (2 September 1915 – 13 September 2005) was a Brazilian composer, teacher and musicologist. Koellreutter was born in Freiburg, Germany and lived in Brazil from 1937 onward, where he became one of the country's most i ...

, a composer who influenced him. He also studied in Paris with

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

. He co-founded and played in the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. His prolific output was mostly instrumental and includes fourteen symphonies, three piano concertos and seven string quartets. He was invited by the Government of the German Federal Republic for the Program "Resident Artist in West Berlin" (1966/67) and by the Brahms Foundation as Resident Artist of the Brahms House (Baden Baden). Claudio Santoro died in

Brasília Brasília (; ) is the federal capital of Brazil and seat of government of the Federal District. The city is located at the top of the Brazilian highlands in the country's Central-West region. It was founded by President Juscelino Kubitsche ...

in March 1989 at the age of 69 while conducting the rehearsal of a concert scheduled to commemorate the 14 July bicentennial of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

Awards

He won a 1948 prize of The Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund at the

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medical ...

, in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

(the judges included the composers

Igor Stravinski Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

and

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

Posts

His positions, titles and activities include being founder and principal of the Chamber Orchestras of Radio MEC and the University of Brasília, the Symphonic Orchestra of the Radio Club of Brazil and the National Theater of Brasília; titular, Coordinating professor for of the Music Department of the University of Brasília; President of the Brasília Section of the Order of the Musicians of Brazil; Musical Director of the Cultural Foundation of the Federal District; member of the Managing Council of the Inter-American Music Council; organizer and director of the Center of Diffusion and Information for the music of Latin America together with the Institute of Comparative Studies of Music and Documentation (former West-Berlin); Member of the Brazilian Academy of Music, the Brazilian Academy of Arts and the Academy of Music and Letters of Brazil, of which he was President. Between 1970 and 1978 he was Professor of Conducting and Composition, Director of the Orchestra and the Music Department of Heidelberg-Mannheim's State Superior Music School, in Germany. Orchestras he guest-conducted include the Philharmonic of Leningrad, Moscow State Orchestra, RIAS Berlin, ORTF Paris, OSSODRE Montevideo, Beethovenhalle Bonn, Symphonic of the Radio of Prague, Philharmonic of Bucharest, Symphonic of Orchestra of Porto, Philharmonic of Sofia, PRO ART (London) Île de France (Paris), Symphonic of the Leipzig Radio, Symphonic of Magdeburg, Philharmonic of Warsaw, as well as the main Brazilian orchestras.

References

Sources *

External links

''Associação Cultural'' extensively detailed website dedicated to the life and work of Cláudio Santoro (in English)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Santoro, Claudio 1919 births People from Manaus 20th-century classical composers Brazilian composers Brazilian film score composers Male film score composers 1989 deaths 20th-century male musicians