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Authors There are 113 authors
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Serra, Joaquim
Joaquim Serra i Corominas was born in Peralada (Alt Empordà) in 1907 and died fifty years later in Barcelona. The son of Josep Serra i Bonal, he studied with his father, Lluís Millet and Enric Morera and he wrote his first sardana (a typical Catalan dance) in 1923. He won two Concepció Rabell awards, for Trio en mi (1926) and Variacions per a orquestra i piano (1928), in addition to various prizes at the Sant Jordi competitions, specifically for Impressions Camperoles (1926), La Fira, Glossa del ball de gitanes and La presó de Lleida.
He wrote approximately fifty outstanding sardanas, such as La primera volada (1921), Infantívola (1922), Tendresa, Joiosa, Rocaborba and Apassionada (all in 1936). Serra’s posthumous piece of work, Puigsoliu was the best of his symphonic poems.
In 1934, he was appointed artistic director of the Associació de Barcelona radio station. He gave a course on orchestration for brass bands in 1948, which he summarised in his book, Tractat d’Instrumentació per a cobla (Instrumentation for brass bands) in 1957. -
Setó, Conrad
Conrad Setó was born in 1958 in Montblanc (Tarragona). In 1967 he began his activity as a professional musician and established the contemporary chamber music group Tanit. He has served as a member of several instrumental groups as a pianist and has held numerous concerts in Spain and abroat, accompanied by such performers as Àngel Pereira (vibraphone), Quim Soler (percussion), Víctor Valls i Joan Garrobé (guitars), Quim Ollé (flute), Iwona Burzynska (violin), Rafael Esteva (double bass) o Daniel Levy (drums), among others.
He has recorded more than ten discs of his own music. The double LP titled Joc de Dames (Game of Draughts) won him first prize for best original recording awarded by the Government of Catalonia. He has participated in the European Festival Jazz of Lemans (France) and in the 1st New Age Exhibition of León alongside such international musicians as H. J. Roedhelius and Wim Mertens.
In 1983 he accomplished his first interdisciplinary spectacle at the Barcelona festival Grec'83 with the work Impressions Cromàtiques (Chromatic Impressions). Ultimately he developed a pictorial-musical project with the painter from Reus, Lluís Sànchez Abelló.
He has worked with the country's best musicians, including, for example, Lluís Llach, Jordi Sabatés, Toti Soler, Núria Feliu, Marina Rossell or the late Ovidi Montllor.
His some 500 compositions are heterogeneous as much in terms of style as in terms of the instrumental formations for which they have been written.
Currently he divides his energy between pedagogy, concerts, and composition. -
Soler, Josep
Josep Soler i Sardà was born in Vilafranca del Penedès in 1935. His musical apprenticeship began here with Rosa Lara, and would continue in Paris with René Leibowitz (1960), and in Barcelona with Cristòfol Taltabull (1960-1964). He has received the “Montecarlo’s Opera Award” (1964), the “Ciutat de Barcelona Award”, twice (1962 and 1978), and the “13rd. Òscar Esplà Award”. His opera Edip and Yocasta premiered in the Gran Teatre del Liceu, in 1986.
In his works, very influenced by the music of Schönberg and Alban Berg, he generally uses the dodecaphonic technique in an expressionistic and impressionistic style, while at the same time becoming more austere and simple.
In the bibliographic world, Josep Soler has written numerous articles and books. From 1977 until 1982, he was a professor of History and Aesthetics at the Barcelona City’s Superior Music Conservatory, and until 1985, a music professor at the same institution. He is currently Director of the Badalona’s Professional Music Conservatory, and Numerary Academician of the Sant Jordi’s Royal Catalonian Academy of the Arts, in Barcelona.
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Soto, Pere
Is a guitarist and composer born in Badalona(Barcelona) in 1958. He is a self-taught musician and has shown greatinterest in all the musical genres. He made his first steps in the world ofRock and Blues and later turned towards Jazz, collaborating and makinga name for himself both in groups and as a soloist, as well as makingseveral recordings in the United States and in Holland.
In 1983, he discovered the music of J. S. Bach, whose spiritualstrength and enormous musical power had a huge impact on him. Fromthat moment on, he moved into the world of the classics, making in-depthstudies of the great masters of every period, right through to renownedcomposers of the 20th century. We should make a special mention ofthree of this century’s great masters: Charles Ives, Olivier Messiaen andAlfred Schnittke, who have had a significant aesthetic influence on hiswork.
In 2000 his String quartet no. 2 was first performed in Mexico City,which is where he then spent a long time teaching and giving seminarsthroughout the country.
In his role as lead performer, he has ten commercial CDs, as wellas a vast number of collaborations in international jazz ensembles.
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Taverna-Bech, Francesc
Born in Barcelona on April 16, 1932. In his hometown, between 1952 and 1954, he attends musical studies and learns to play the piano, the violin, and musical composition.
In 1973 begins his dedication to music reviews at the same time that his career as a composer intensifies. His catalog today has eighty musical compositions, most of which have been programmed and played for the first time in the Catalonian music scene as well as Spain’s, and in other cities of Europe, Asia, and America. He has also been a judge in musical composition and interpretation competitions.
His articles have been published in Serra d’Or, Revista de Catalunya, Revista Musical Catalana, El Correo Catalán, Destino, Barcelona Metrópolis, and Barcelona Creació (Yokohama, 1990). He has also collaborated in the activities of the Universitat Catalana d’Estiu from Prada de Conflent (France).
After an evolutionary period that goes from neoclassical postulates (Suite Catalana) to proposals of an atonal and serial character (Calidoscopi, Díptic, Climes, Gèminis), he gathers the experiences extracted from these two forms, mixes them, and turns them into a new style with a markedly expressive content (Temperaments, Proses disperses), although on certain occasions he returns to the original styles (Camins Somorts, Auguris, etc.).
Francesc Taverna-Bech died 16 April 2010. -
Toldrà, Eduard
Eduard Toldrà (Vilanova i la Geltrú, Garraf, 1895 - Barcelona, 1962) studied starting from the 1906 in the Municipal School of Music of Barcelona, especially with Luis Millet and Antoni Nicolau. The year 1912 debuted as violinist in the Athenaeum of Barcelona. The same year it founded the Quartet Rebirth with Luis Recasens, violin, L.Sánchez, violates, and A.Planas, violonchelo, formation that had an existence decade. It was perfected, pensioned by the city council of Barcelona, in Paris, Berlin and Vienna. It was violin professor and of orchestra's address in Music's Municipal School. As director it acted in head of the Orchestra of Symphonic Studies, and when the year 1944 the Municipal Orchestra from Barcelona was formed director he was named. He is author of many symphonic works for orchestra and cobla (formation musical Catalan). It is considered one of the most important musicians in Catalunya and Spain in the 20th century.
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Torrents, Mercè
Mercè Torrents was born in Barcelona, she was daughter of the known Catalan cellist and music promoter Joan Torrents i Maymir, from who she inherits the great creativity. She studies piano in the Conservatoire of the Liceo de Barcelona with maestro Pere Vallribera and she gets the best qualifications. Self-taught in composition, she receives, however, teaching from Cristòfor Taltabull. Her works have received the acknowledgement from maestros Eduard Toldrà, Ricard Lamote de Grignon, Joaquim Zamacois and most recently Joan Guinjoan.
She has composed pieces for piano, for instrumental groups of different composition, for chamber orchestra and for cobla. She has put music, both for choral and soloist voice and piano, to the poems of several Catalan poets such as Josep Carner, Salvador Espriu, Pere Quart, Miquel Martí Pol and J. V. Foix, this last one expressing his gratitude and enthusiasm for the musicality of his compositions.
She has put music to Salvador Espriu’s poem Llibre de Sinera (1968) by means of an oratorio, to the work Final del Laberint by means of gospel and also to La Pell de Brau (1983), as well as to other poems. She has also put music to the First Part of the Miquel Martí Pol’s book Els Bells Camins by means of voice and piano, and to the Second Part by means of musical illustrations for piano and recitative.
Her work has been performed by singers such as Mercè Bibiloni, Francesca Callao, Assumpta Serra, Anna Ricci, Mª. Àngels Sarroca, Núria Feliu, Dolors Lafitte, Marina Rossell, Núria Batlle, Dolors Martí, Anton Carrera and Celdoni Fonoll, and also by the Choral Càrmina.
She has recorded several discs and as of 1989 she is a member of the Catalan Association of Composers. -
Valls Duran, Pere
Pere Valls i Duran was born in Sabadell (Barcelona) in the year 1869, and died in the Catalan capital in 1935. He was an outstanding double-bass player and composer and an excellent double-bass teacher. He began his musical studies in Sabadell, but later moved to Barcelona to extend them. At the age of eighteen, already with a good command of the double bass, he travelled to the Republic of Argentina, where he established himself in Buenos Aires, and formed part of several orchestras. There, he was able to extend his studies of harmony and counterpoint, as well as the double bass, with José Roveda, pupil of the great Italian double bass player Giovanni Bottessini. The experience he gained in Buenos Aires, both with symphonic and operatic repertoires, was decisive in his career. The American phase ended in 1892 when, due to family circumstances, he had to return to Catalonia.
That same year he settled in Barcelona and, throughout the following 30 years, he was one of the most outstanding artists on the Catalan music scene, because of the significant roles he played in four areas: in the first place, as an performer - he was part of the best orchestras of the time, such as the Orchestra Pau Casals, Barcelona’s City Band and the Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu; secondly, as a double bass teacher - he was a teacher at the Liceu Conservatoire for more than 20 years, and the majority of the country’s double bass instrumentalists passed through his classes. In addition, he was the author of a Method for the Double Bass, indebted to the Bottessini School; thirdly, through his work in promoting music, by actively participating in different musical associations like the Musicians’ Union of Catalonia, the Barcelona Wagnerian Association or the Workers’ Concert Association; and, fourthly, as a composer.
As a composer, Pere Valls was the author of more than fifty works for various groups, but, of all of them, those for the double bass are outstanding. From among his works for the double bass and piano, we highlight the Andalusian Suite (1918) in four movements. It is a work which is currently included in the repertoire of several European double bass schools, such as Madrid’s Reina Sofia department. Other remarkable works are the three Fantasias for double bass and orchestra (written between 1894 and 1917), one of which is a tribute to Bottessini; the Grand obligatory concerto for double bass (1906), the Fantasia andante with variations, the Grand Introduction and Tarantella, the Theme with variations for the double bass, the Tarantella-concerto for double bass (1893) and the Romance for double bass and piano, a work which - in its transcription for the cello - was played for the first time by Pau Casals himself. His catalogue is completed with works for orchestras, piano, chamber orchestras, the cobla (a wind orchestra popular in Catalonia), for bands, solo instruments, dance bands and, finally, a zarzuela (Spanish operetta).
