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

Cuban 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 perso ...

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 Defi ...

, conductor, and

classical guitar The classical guitar (also known as the nylon-string guitar or Spanish guitar) is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor o ...

ist. He is a Member of Honour of the

International Music Council The International Music Council (IMC) was created in 1949 as UNESCO's advisory body on matters of music. It is based at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, France, where it functions as an independent international non-governmental organization. Its p ...

Family

He is the grandson of Cuban composer

Ernestina Lecuona y Casado Ernestina Lecuona y Casado (16 January 1882 – 3 September 1951) was a Cuban pianist, music educator and composer. Life Ernestina Lecuona y Casado was born in Matanzas into a musical family. Her brother was pianist and composer Ernesto Lecuon ...

. His great-uncle,

Ernesto Lecuona Ernesto Lecuona y Casado (; August 7, 1896 – November 29, 1963) was a Cuban composer and pianist, many of whose works have become standards of the Latin, jazz and classical repertoires. His over 600 compositions include songs and zarzuelas as ...

, composed " La Malagueña" and his second cousin,

Margarita Lecuona Margarita Lecuona (1910–1981) was a Cuban singer and composer who is remembered for composing Afro songs such as "Babalú" and "Tabú". Biography Born in Havana on 18 April 1910, Lecuona was the daughter of Eugenio Lecuona, the Cuban consul in ...

, composed "

Babalú "Babalú" is a Cuban popular afro song written by Margarita Lecuona, the cousin of composers Ernestina and Ernesto Lecuona. The song title is a reference to the Santería deity Babalú Ayé. Lyrics In the song's lyrics, originally written in S ...

", which was popularized by Cuban musician and actor

Desi Arnaz Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986) was a Cuban-born American actor, bandleader, and film and television producer. He played Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, Ricky Ricardo on the American television sitcom ''I Lov ...

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 bega ...

, who was a student of

Emilio Pujol Emilio Pujol Vilarrubí (or ''Emili''; 10 September 1886 – 21 November 1980) was a Spanish composer, guitarist and a leading teacher of the classical guitar. Biography Emili Pujol was born in the little village of Granadella just outside Ll ...

, who was himself a student of

Francisco Tárrega Francisco de Asís Tárrega Eixea (21 November 185215 December 1909) was a Spanish composer and classical guitarist of the late Romantic period. He is known for such pieces as Capricho Árabe and ''Recuerdos de la Alhambra''. He is often calle ...

. 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 The Hartt School is the comprehensive performing arts conservatory of the University of Hartford located in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States, that offers degree programs in music, dance, and theatre. Founded in 1920 by Julius Hartt and ...

of the

University of Hartford The University of Hartford (UHart) is a private university in West Hartford, Connecticut. Its main campus extends into neighboring Hartford and Bloomfield. The university attracts students from 48 states and 43 countries. The university and it ...

, and later at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most el ...

, where he studied under

Vincent Persichetti Vincent Ludwig Persichetti (June 6, 1915 – August 14, 1987) was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. An important musical educator and writer, he was known for his integration of various new ideas in musical composition into his own wo ...

and took composition classes with Stefan Wolpe. In 1970 Brouwer played in the premiere of '' El Cimarrón'' by

Hans Werner Henze Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as t ...

in Berlin. Together with

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...

, 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 Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

Composing and performing

In his early compositions, Brouwer remained close to the rhythms of Cuban music, while later he was drawn to

aleatoric music Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin word ''alea'', meaning "dice") is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the ...

. During the 1960s and 70s, he became interested in the music of

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

composers such as

Luigi Nono Luigi Nono (; 29 January 1924 – 8 May 1990) was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music. Biography Early years Nono, born in Venice, was a member of a wealthy artistic family; his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono beg ...

and

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde ...

, 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 call ...

and

modality Modality may refer to: Humanities * Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations * Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales * Modaliti ...

. The solo guitar works ''El Decamerón Negro'' (1981), ''Paisaje cubano con campanas'' (1986), and the ''Sonata'' (1990; for

Julian Bream Julian Alexander Bream (15 July 193314 August 2020) was an English classical guitarist and lutenist. Regarded as one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century, he played a significant role in improving the public per ...

) 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 Sylvano Bussotti (1 October 1931 – 19 September 2021) was an Italian composer of contemporary classical music, also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and manager, writer and academic teacher. His compositions employ graphic n ...

Maurice Ohana Maurice Ohana (12 June 1913 – 13 November 1992) was a French composer. Ohana's output includes choral works, string quartets, suites for ten-string guitar, a ''Tiento'' for six-string guitar, and operas. Life and career Ohana was born in Casab ...

Cristóbal Halffter Cristóbal Halffter Jiménez-Encina (24 March 1930 – 23 May 2021) was a Spanish classical composer. He was the nephew of two other composers, Rodolfo and Ernesto Halffter and is regarded as the most important Spanish composer of the gene ...

Leni Alexander Leni Alexander (8 June 1924 – 7 August 2005) was a German-Chilean composer. Biography Helene Alexander Pollak was born in Breslau, in Lower Silesia (now Wrocław, Poland), and her family lived in Hamburg and then emigrated to Chile in 1939 to ...

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...

, 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 BBC Concert Orchestra is a British concert orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five BBC orchestras which is not a full-scale sym ...

, the

Berlin Philharmonic The Berlin Philharmonic (german: Berliner Philharmoniker, links=no, italic=no) is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world. History The Berlin Philharmonic was fo ...

, 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 The Communist Party of Cuba ( es, Partido Comunista de Cuba, PCC) is the sole ruling party of Cuba. It was founded on 3 October 1965 as the successor to the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which was in turn made up of the 26 ...

, 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 perso ...

. Brouwer is the great-uncle of

Al Jourgensen Alain David Jourgensen (born Alejandro Ramírez Casas; October 9, 1958) is a Cuban-American singer, musician and music producer. Closely related with the independent record label Wax Trax! Records, his musical career spans four decades. He is be ...

Ministry Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian ...

fame. Brouwer is the brother of Jourgensen's maternal grandfather.

Selected compositions

Chamber and solo instrumental * 2009 '' Mitología de las Aguas'' (''Sonata No. 1 for flute and guitar'') Film scores * 1968: ''

Lucía ''Lucía'' is a 1968 Cuban black-and-white drama film directed by Humberto Solás, and written by Solás, Julio García Espinosa and Nelson Rodríguez (film writer), Nelson Rodríguez. It was the winner of the Golden Prize and the Prix Internation ...

'' * 1992: ''

Like Water for Chocolate (film) ''Like Water for Chocolate'' (Spanish: ''Como agua para chocolate'') is a 1992 Mexican romantic drama film in the style of magical realism based on the novel, published in 1989 by first-time Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel. It earned ten Ariel Aw ...

References

Other sources

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