José Antônio Rezende de Almeida Prado
Encyclopedia
José Antônio Rezende de Almeida Prado or Almeida Prado (February 8, 1943 – November 21, 2010) was an important Brazil
ian composer
of classical music
and a pianist
. On Almeida Prado's death, his personal friend, conductor João Carlos Martins
stated that Prado had possibly been the most important living Brazilian composer.
Prado wrote over 400 compositions and won various prizes for his work.
He was born in Santos, São Paulo
in 1943. He died in São Paulo
in 2010, having lived there for the latter part of his life.
(piano
), Osvaldo Lacerda
(harmony
) and Camargo Guarnieri
(composition).
Upon winning first prize for his cantata
Pequenos Funerais Cantantes, based on a text by Hilda Hilst
, at the I Festival de Música da Guanabara in 1969, he continued his studies in Europe. He studied with Olivier Messiaen
and Nadia Boulanger
in Paris
from 1970 to 1973, besides brief studies with György Ligeti
and Lukas Foss
in Darmstadt
.
, he became a professor at the UNICAMP
Institute of the Arts, retiring in 2000. After his retirement he settled in São Paulo
, where he occasionally taught music courses and presented a radio program at Cultura FM
.
In January 2007, his cantata Hiléia, Um Mural da Amazônia, based on the poem of the same name by Ives Gandra Martins, was performed at Carnegie Hall
by the Orquestra Bachiana Filarmônica de São Paulo conducted by João Carlos Martins
.
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian 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...
of classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
and a pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
. On Almeida Prado's death, his personal friend, conductor João Carlos Martins
João Carlos Martins
João Carlos Martins, born June 25, 1940 in Sao Paulo, Brazil is an acclaimed Brazilian classical pianist and conductor, who has performed with leading orchestras in the United States, Europe and Brazil....
stated that Prado had possibly been the most important living Brazilian composer.
Prado wrote over 400 compositions and won various prizes for his work.
He was born in Santos, São Paulo
São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
in 1943. He died in São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
in 2010, having lived there for the latter part of his life.
Training
In Brazil, Almeida Prado studied with Dinorá de CarvalhoDinorá de Carvalho
Dinorá Gontijo de Carvalho was a Brazilian pianist, conductor, music educator and composer.-Life:Dinorá de Carvalho was born in Uberaba, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and began her study of piano at the Conservatorio Musical in São Paulo at age six with Maria Lacaz Machado and Carlino Crescenzo...
(piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
), Osvaldo Lacerda
Osvaldo Lacerda
Osvaldo Lacerda ) is a Brazilian composer. He began piano study at nine, and in 1963, he became the first Brazilian composer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship.-References:...
(harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
) and Camargo Guarnieri
Camargo Guarnieri
Mozart Camargo Guarnieri was a Brazilian composer.-Name:He was registered at birth as Mozart Guarnieri, but when he began a musical career, he decided his first name was too pretentious and subject to puns. Thus he adopted his mother's maiden name Camargo as a middle name, and thenceforth signed...
(composition).
Upon winning first prize for his cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
Pequenos Funerais Cantantes, based on a text by Hilda Hilst
Hilda Hilst
Hilda de Almeida Prado Hilst, more widely known as Hilda Hilst was a Brazilian poet, playwright and novelist, whose fiction and poetry were generally based upon delicate intimacy and often insanity and supernatural events. Particularly her late works belong to the tradition of magic realism.-Early...
, at the I Festival de Música da Guanabara in 1969, he continued his studies in Europe. He studied with Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
and Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
from 1970 to 1973, besides brief studies with György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
and Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...
in Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
.
Professional Activities
Returning to Brazil in 1974, Almeida Prado first taught at the Conservatório Municipal de Cubatão, and then, hired by Zeferino VazZeferino Vaz
Zeferino Vaz led the construction, establishment and development of the Unicamp university, in the interior of the State of São Paulo, Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s...
, he became a professor at the UNICAMP
Universidade Estadual de Campinas
Universidade Estadual de Campinas is one of the three public universities of the Brazilian state of São Paulo, along both USP and UNESP....
Institute of the Arts, retiring in 2000. After his retirement he settled in São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, where he occasionally taught music courses and presented a radio program at Cultura FM
Padre Anchieta Foundation
The Padre Anchieta Foundation is a Brazilian organization that develops educational radio and television programs.It was created by the government of the state of São Paulo in 1967 and includes a television station , and a radio station , which broadcasts on the AM and FM bands.The Padre Anchieta...
.
In January 2007, his cantata Hiléia, Um Mural da Amazônia, based on the poem of the same name by Ives Gandra Martins, was performed at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
by the Orquestra Bachiana Filarmônica de São Paulo conducted by João Carlos Martins
João Carlos Martins
João Carlos Martins, born June 25, 1940 in Sao Paulo, Brazil is an acclaimed Brazilian classical pianist and conductor, who has performed with leading orchestras in the United States, Europe and Brazil....
.
Selected works
- Orchestral music: Cidade de São Paulo (1981); Sinfonia dos orixás (1985–86); Sinfonia Apocalipse (1987); Variações concertantes para marimba, vibrafone e cordas (1984); Concert Fribourgeois (1985) e Concerto para piano e orquestra (1983).
- Choral music: Ritual para a Sexta-feira Santa para coro e orquestra (1966); Paixão de Nosso Senhor Jesus Cristo segundo São Marcos (1967); Pequenos funerais cantantes para coro, solistas, orquestra (1969); Carta de Patmo para coro, solista e orquestra (1971); Thèrèse ou l’Amour de Dieu para coro e orquestra (1986); Cantata Bárbara Heliodora para solistas, coro misto e orquestra de câmara (1987); Cantata Adonay Roi Loeçar para solistas, coro e orquestra de câmara.
- Solo instrumental music: Sonata para violoncelo (1980); Três Sonatas para violino e piano; Sonata para viola e piano (1983); Réquiem para a paz (1985); Sonata para flauta e piano (1986); Trio marítimo para violino, viola e piano (1983); Livro mágico de Xangô para violino e violoncelo (1984).
- Piano music: Cartas celestes (1974, 1982–83); Nove Sonatas; Noturnos; Prelúdios; Momentos; Ilhas; Rios; Itinerário idílico e amoroso ou Livro de Helenice (1976); Três Croquis de Israel (1989); Rosário de Medjugorje (1987); Quinze Flashes de Jerusalém (1989).
Publications
- Prado, José Antônio R. De Almeida, Cartas Celestes: uma uranografia sonora geradora de novos processos composicionais. Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes, Departamento de Música: 1986. Tese (Doutorado).
Further reading
- Costa, Régis Gomide, Os momentos de Almeida Prado: laboratório de experimentos composicionais, Porto Alegre: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Instituto de Artes, Departamento de Música: 1998. Dissertação (Mestrado).
- Fraga, Elisa Maria Zein, O livro das duas meninas de Almeida Prado: uma outra leitura, Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes, Departamento de Música: 1995. Dissertação (Mestrado).
- Guigue, Didier & Pinheiro, Fabiola. "Estratégias de articulação formal nos Momentos de Almeida Prado." Debates, n. 6 (Nov. 2002): 61-88. Universidade do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), Rio de Janeiro, RJ.
- Hassan, Mônica Farid, A Relação texto-música nas canções religiosas de Almeida Prado, Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes, Departamento de Música: 1996. Dissertação (Mestrado).
- Lopes, Adriana da Cunha Moreira, A poética nos 16 Poesilúdios para piano de Almeida Prado: análise musical, Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes, Departamento de Música: 2002. Dissertação (Mestrado).
- Yansen, Carlos Alberto Silva, Almeida Prado: Estudos para Piano, aspectos técnico-interpretativos. Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes, Departamento de Música: 2005. Dissertação (Mestrado).
- Yansen, Carlos Alberto Silva, Concerto Fribourgeois de Almeida Prado para piano e cordas: um estudo para a interpretação. Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes, Departamento de Música: 2010. Tese (Doutorado).
External links
- Biography (in Portuguese)
- Interview with Matheus G. Bitondi (in Portuguese)