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Mario Lavista (April 3, 1943 – November 4, 2021) was a Mexican

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 ...

, writer and intellectual.

Life and career

Lavista was born in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

. He enrolled the Composition Workshop (Taller de Composición) at the National Conservatory in 1963, under the guidance of

Carlos Chávez Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez (13 June 1899 – 2 August 1978) was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by nativ ...

, Héctor Quintana, and

Rodolfo Halffter Rodolfo Halffter Escriche (October 20, 1900 – October 14, 1987) was a Spanish composer. Early years Born in Madrid, Spain, into a family of musicians, Rodolfo Halffter was the brother of Ernesto Halffter and uncle of Cristóbal Halffter, also c ...

. In 1967 he received a scholarship from the French government to study at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where he studied with Jean-Étienne Marie. During his time in Europe, he attended courses by

Henri Pousseur Henri Léon Marie-Thérèse Pousseur (23 June 1929 – 6 March 2009) was a Belgian classical composer, teacher, and music theorist. Biography Pousseur was born in Malmedy and studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 t ...

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 ...

Christoph Caskel Christoph Caskel (born 12 January 1932) is a German percussionist and teacher. Life Born in Greifswald, Caskel began learning percussion at an early age, taking lessons at the age of five with a military musician and as a schoolboy with a percu ...

, and

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th and early 21st-century ...

. In 1970 he founded Quanta, a collective improvisation group. He also worked at the electronic music studios of Tokyo radio and television in 1972. At the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s he closely collaborated with renowned performers in solo and chamber works where he explored unusual timbre possibilities by the use of extended techniques. In 1982, he founded ''Pauta'', one of the most important music journals in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

, and continued to serve as its chief editor. In 1987, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his first (and only) opera '' Aura'', based on the short story by

Carlos Fuentes Carlos Fuentes Macías (; ; November 11, 1928 – May 15, 2012) was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are ''The Death of Artemio Cruz'' (1962), ''Aura'' (1962), '' Terra Nostra'' (1975), ''The Old Gringo'' (1985) and ''Christopher ...

. ''Aura'' premiered in 1988 at the

Palacio de Bellas Artes The Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) is a prominent cultural center in Mexico City. It has hosted notable events in music, dance, theatre, opera and literature in Mexico and has held important exhibitions of painting, sculpture and p ...

in Mexico City.Aguilar, Ananay
"La circularidad en ''Aura'', la ópera de Mario Lavista"
, ''Cuadernos de música, artes visuales y artes escénicas'', Vol.1, No.2, December 2006 Lavista approached religious genres in a series of compositions where he used Medieval and Renaissance procedures, such as the symbolic use of certain intervals, canonic permutations, and

isorhythm Isorhythm (from the Greek for "the same rhythm") is a musical technique using a repeating rhythmic pattern, called a ''talea'', in at least one voice part throughout a composition. ''Taleae'' are typically applied to one or more melodic patterns o ...

, most evident in the ''Missa ad Consolationis Dominam Nostram'', a central work in his oeuvre. He received multiple awards and honors: Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes and the Medalla Mozart in 1991, an honorable mention from the Sistema Nacional de Creadores del Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes in 1993, and membership in the prestigious El Colegio Nacional since 1998. Lavista’s works are frequently performed in Europe and throughout the Americas, where he travelled regularly to give lectures and seminars in composition. Since 1970 he taught music analysis and composition at the National Conservatory in Mexico City. Additionally, he was visiting professor at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

San Diego,

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...

University of North Texas The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 years later."Denton Normal School, ...

, and The University of New Mexico. He composed incidental music for plays,

film scores A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

(mostly in conjunction with

Nicolás Echevarría Nicolás Echevarría (born 8 August 1947) is a Mexican film director and cinematographer. He has directed over 20 films since 1973. His 1991 film ''Cabeza de Vaca'' was entered into the 41st Berlin International Film Festival. Echevarría dra ...

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

l pieces, and

vocal music Vocal music is a type of singing performed by one or more singers, either with instrumental accompaniment, or without instrumental accompaniment (a cappella), in which singing provides the main focus of the piece. Music which employs singing but d ...

. In 2013, Lavista won the Tomás Luis de Victoria Composition Prize, the foremost recognition for musical creativity for Ibero-American composers.

Music

Chamber works

*''Antifonia'', mixed quintet *''Cante'', guitar ensemble *''Canto del Alba'', flute solo *''Cinco Danzas Breves'', woodwind quintet *''Cuaderno de Viaje'', viola or violoncello solo *''Danza de las Bailarinas de Degas'', flute and keyboard *''Diacronia'', string quartet *''Dialogos'', violin and keyboard *''Elegia (a la muerte de Nacho)'', flute and keyboard *''Gargantua'', string quartet and woodwind ensemble *''Lacrymosa'', chamber orchestra *''Marsias'', oboe and ensemble *''Natarayah'', guitar solo *''Quotations'', violoncello and keyboard *''Reflejos de la Noche'', string orchestra or string quartet *''Responsorio in Memoriam Rodolfo Halffter'', bassoon and ensemble *''String Quartet No. 6 *''Tres Danzas Seculares'', violoncello and keyboard

Orchestral works

*Sinfonia Modal *Cello Concerto *''Clepsidra'' *''Ficciones'' *''Hacia el Comienzo'', medium voice and ensemble *''Lyhannh''

Songs

*''Dos Canciones'', medium voice and piano

Solo keyboard

*''Mater Dolorosa'', organ solo *''Pieza Para un Pianista y un Piano'', piano solo *''Simurg'', piano solo

References

Sources

* Alonso-Minutti, Ana R. (2008). "Resonances of Sound, Text, and Image in the Music of Mario Lavista." Ph.D. Diss. Davis: University of California, Davis. * Aharonian, Coriún (2000). ''An Approach to Compositional Trends in Latin America'', International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST). * Cortez, Luis Jaime (1988). ''Mario Lavista: Textos en torno a la música'', Mexico City: CENIDIM. * (1993). "El lenguaje musical de Aura", ''Heterofonía'', vol. 26, no. 108 (January–June): pp. 45-51. Mexico City: CENIDIM. * Orellana, Joaquín (1977). "Hacia un lenguaje propio de Latinoamérica en música actual". ''Alero'', third quarter, no. 24 (Guatemala City, May–June 1977).

External links

Biography of Mario Lavista
on The Living Composers Project
Peermusic Classical: Mario Lavista
Composer's Publisher and Bio
"Muere el compositor mexicano Mario Lavista"
''Tabasco Hoy'' November 4, 2021. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lavista, mario 1943 births 2021 deaths Mexican male classical composers Mexican classical composers Members of El Colegio Nacional (Mexico) Musicians from Mexico City National Conservatory of Music of Mexico alumni Pupils of Karlheinz Stockhausen