Daniel Ayala Pérez was a Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

, and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Biography

Ayala studied violin with Revueltas

Silvestre Revueltas

Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez was a Mexican composer of classical music, a violinist and a conductor.-Life:...

 and composition with Chávez

Carlos Chávez

Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six Symphonies, his Symphony No...

, Manuel M. Ponce, Vicente T. Mendoza, Candelario Huízar and Julián Carrillo

Julián Carrillo

Julián Carrillo Trujillo was a Mexican composer, conductor, violinist and music theorist, famous for developing a theory of microtonal music which he dubbed "The Thirteenth Sound" .-Biography:...

 at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música, Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

 from 1927 to 1932. For a time he earned his living playing in the night club Salón México, a locale later celebrated in a well-known composition by Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

. In 1934 he formed, together with fellow composers Salvador Contreras, Blas Galindo

Blas Galindo

-Biography:Born in San Gabriel, Jalisco, Galindo studied intermittently from 1931 to 1944 at the National Conservatory in Mexico City, under Carlos Chávez, Candelario Huizar, José Rolón, and Manuel Rodríguez Vizcarra...

 and José Pablo Moncayo

José Pablo Moncayo

José Pablo Moncayo García was a Mexican pianist, percussionist, music teacher, composer and conductor. "As composer, José Pablo Moncayo represents one of the most important legacies of the Mexican nationalism in art music, after Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chávez." He produced some of the...

, the "Group of Four". From 1931 he was a second violinist in the Orquesta Sinfónica de México under Chávez, and directed a choir in Morelia for two years, but in 1940 returned to his native Yucatán to accept an appointment as conductor of the Police Band in Mérida

Mérida, Yucatán

Mérida is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Yucatán and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is located in the northwest part of the state, about from the Gulf of Mexico coast...

. In 1942 he founded the Orquesta Típica Yukalpetén, which performs compositions by Yucatecan composers of the past and present.

In 1944 he became conductor of the newly reorganized Mérida Symphony Orchestra and director of the Yucatán Conservatory. In 1955 he moved to Veracruz to take up the directorship of the school of music there, and also worked for the Veracruz Institute of Fine Arts.

Compositions

As a composer, Ayala's first major success was with a symphonic poem, Uchben X'coholte (1933), whose title means "In an Ancient Cemetery" in the Mayan

Maya peoples

The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...

language. His most ambitious work is the ballet El Hombre Maya (The Mayan Man), but the symphonic poem Tribu (1934) is perhaps his best-known work, thanks to a recording made in 1956 by the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional under Luís Herrera de la Fuente (Musart 3-LP set MCDC 3033, included on the single disc Viva México! released in the USA on Capitol T-10083). After 1944 his conducting and administrative duties occupied more and more of his time, and he composed comparatively little.

Orchestra

• Cinco piezas infantiles, for string orchestra (1933)
• Tribu, sym. poem, (1934)
  • En la llanura (On the Prairie)
  • La serpiente negra (The Black Serpent)
  • La danza del fuego (Fire Dance)
• Paisaje (Landscape), suite, (1935)
• Panoramas de México, suite (1936)
  • Sonora
  • Veracruz
  • Yucatán
• Mi viaje a Norte América (My North-American Journey), suite (1947)
• Acuarela nocturna (en San Salvador), op. 20 (1949)
• Suite veracruzana (1957)
• Concertino for Piano and Orchestra (1974)

Vocal

• Uchben X'coholte (In an Ancient Cemetery), for soprano and chamber orchestra (1931)
• Cuatro canciones, for soprano and piano (1932)
• El grillo (The Cricket, words by Daniel Castañeda), for soprano, clarinet, violin, piano, and rattle (1933)
• U kayil chaac (Mayan rain song), for soprano and chamber orchestra with indigenous percussion (1934)
• Suite infantil (Children's Suite), for soprano and chamber orchestra (1936)
  • Duerme. Moderato cantabile
  • El aire. Allegro
  • El caimán. Andantino
  • El violín. Andante
  • El indigena. Allegretto
  • El gallo. Allegro
• Los pescadores Seris (The Seri Fishermen), for voice and chamber orchestra with indigenous percussion (1938)
• Los danzantes Yaquis (The Yaqui Dancers), for voice and chamber orchestra with indigenous percussion (1938)

Chamber music

• String Quartet (1933)
• Vidrios rotos (Broken Windows), for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, piano (1938)

Sources

• Alvarez Coral, Juan. "Daniel Ayala Pérez". Compositor [Sociedad de Autores y Compositores de México] 40 (July) 22–23.
• Alvarez Coral, Juan. 1993. Compositores mexicanos. Sixth, enlarged edition. México: EDAMEX, 1993. ISBN 9-684-09109-5
• Slonimsky, Nicolas. 1945. Music of Latin America. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.
• Stevenson, Robert Murrell. 1952. Music in Mexico: A Historical Survey. New York: Crowell.