Morella Muñoz
Encyclopedia
Morella Muñoz was a celebrated Venezuela
n mezzosoprano.
She received primary education at the Venezuela Ricardo Zuloaga Experimental school, and the San José de Tarbes school. In 1946 she was admitted to the Andrés Bello grammar school, immediately joining its choir, directed by Lorenzo Spinal Figallo, and also becoming a member of the Choir of the Central University of Venezuela
created and directed by Antonio Estévez
, who insisted on her applying to join this institution.
During the selection process, Morella was discovered by professor Lidia Butturini de Panaro, who from that moment would become a determining person in her artistic base and future formation. Already in 1948, she was singing with in the pseudonym of Morella Kenton at the Radiodifusora Venezuela station, entering soon in television, in the program of the famous entertainer Víctor Saume. In 1953, at the request of professor Panaro, Morella entered the Superior School of Music, studying singing. Her teachers were Inocente Carreño
and Raimundo Pereira in music theory, Vicente Emilio Sojo
in harmony, and Juan Bautista Plaza
in music history, musical aesthetics and comedy. In this period, she staged her first classic concert together with the Orfeón Lamas
choral ensemble.
In 1957, after graduating from school, she traveled to Tanglewood
, (England
) to participate in the Berkshire Music Center summer course. In 1958 she traveled again to Europe, where she studied chamber music interpretation at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome
, under the direction of Giorgio Favaretto while simultaneously attending Italian courses in the Dante Alighieri Institute.
After this, she moved on to the Vienna School of Music & Arts where she completed her singing education. Also, during this period she visited Quekhoven (Netherlands
), where she followed singing and interpretation courses with Noemí Perugia.
The albums Six Venezuelan Songs Of Antonio Estévez
and American Songs circulated in the Venezuelan market, with a selection of spirituals and compositions sung in March 1957 in a concert featuring Pan-American music at the Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas
. In 1961 Muñoz sang at the Palazzo Forte of Verona
, under the auspices of the Musical Culture Academy of this city. She earned the Spring Prize of the Prague International Contest for singers of academic formation. That same year she married Pedro Alvarez Ibarra, and they had two children.
After returning to Caracas, she joined the Quinteto Contrapunto
, whose first album of a series of five was recorded in 1962. Soon she returned to Europe and in London she took private classes with Rozna Side, as part of an advanced vocal technique course. At her return to Venezuela her album Venezuelan Children's Songs produced in England was released. In 1967 the album Alirio and Morella songs was released, composed of Venezuelan folk music and Christmas songs, sung by Morella and accompanied by guitarist Alirio Diaz
. Also around this time she produced a series of LP albums dedicated to traditional Christmas songs, with the participation of several artists.
In addition to her numerous presentations across the country, either individually or along with figures like Ignacio Figueredo
and Fredy Reyna
, Muñoz participated in several tours, singing in various capitals and other important cities of Europe
and the Americas. As a recognition to her talent, she was the only South American singer to be included among the new values of the 20th century in the Encyclopedia of Music (Germany 1959/Spain 1970, directed by Fred Hamel and Martín Hürdimann).
She had a vast repertoire that included folkloric music, traditional indigenous, religious and popular songs, and contemporary urban compositions. In the academic field her repertoire included concerts, masses, oratorios, requiems and operas. She was considered by many to be the best Latin American interpreter of Brahms
. Also, she specialized in the vocal music of Schubert
, Schumann
, Wolf
, Bach
, Handel
and Mahler
.
, the Caracas Philarmonic Orchestra and the Simón Bolivar National Orchestra, singing as soloist in Mozart
's Requiem
, Handel
's Messiah
, Vivaldi
's Gloria and Beethoven
's Ninth symphony
. In 1982 she released an anthological edition of 12 albums, accompanied by a testimonial book by Carlos González Vegas. In 1988, she was the inaugural voice of the First Caracas Christmas proclamation, celebrated in the Plaza Bolívar of Caracas. Between 1989 and 1992, she worked as a consultant to the Culture Ministry. In 1994 the Disco Club Venezolano published a CD and a book in her honor, Morella Muñoz, Our Voice. Throughout her artistic life she received numerous awards, among them the National Music Prize in 1992.
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
n mezzosoprano.
Early life and career
Central University of Venezuela
The Central University of Venezuela is a premier public University of Venezuela located in Caracas...
created and directed by Antonio Estévez
Antonio Estévez
Antonio Estévez Aponte , was a Venezuelan musician, composer, and conductor, and founder of the Central University of Venezuela Chorus.Estévez was born to Mariano Estévez and Carmen Aponte...
, who insisted on her applying to join this institution.
During the selection process, Morella was discovered by professor Lidia Butturini de Panaro, who from that moment would become a determining person in her artistic base and future formation. Already in 1948, she was singing with in the pseudonym of Morella Kenton at the Radiodifusora Venezuela station, entering soon in television, in the program of the famous entertainer Víctor Saume. In 1953, at the request of professor Panaro, Morella entered the Superior School of Music, studying singing. Her teachers were Inocente Carreño
Inocente Carreño
Inocente Carreño is a Venezuelan composer and academic. He was Professor of Theory and Solmization at the José Angel Lamas Superior Music School for thirty years, and for twenty-five years was a horn player in the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra. He was the director of the Prudencio Essá School of...
and Raimundo Pereira in music theory, Vicente Emilio Sojo
Vicente Emilio Sojo
Vicente Emilio Sojo was a Venezuelan musicologist, educator and composer, born in Guatire, Miranda.- Biography :...
in harmony, and Juan Bautista Plaza
Juan Bautista Plaza
Juan Bautista Plaza Alfonso was a classical composer. He began studies in medicine at the Central University of Venezuela but, with time, left in order to dedicate himself to music. His first teacher was Jesus Maria Suárez. He studied in Rome from 1920 and 1923 and obtained the title of...
in music history, musical aesthetics and comedy. In this period, she staged her first classic concert together with the Orfeón Lamas
Orfeón Lamas
A fundamental institution for the modernity of choral music in Venezuela, was the Orfeón Lamas, being pioneering at this genre and in the compilation of Venezuelan popular songs, before it, any choral group in Venezuela exist....
choral ensemble.
In 1957, after graduating from school, she traveled to Tanglewood
Tanglewood
Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...
, (England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
) to participate in the Berkshire Music Center summer course. In 1958 she traveled again to Europe, where she studied chamber music interpretation at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, under the direction of Giorgio Favaretto while simultaneously attending Italian courses in the Dante Alighieri Institute.
After this, she moved on to the Vienna School of Music & Arts where she completed her singing education. Also, during this period she visited Quekhoven (Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
), where she followed singing and interpretation courses with Noemí Perugia.
Professional career
Antonio Estévez
Antonio Estévez Aponte , was a Venezuelan musician, composer, and conductor, and founder of the Central University of Venezuela Chorus.Estévez was born to Mariano Estévez and Carmen Aponte...
and American Songs circulated in the Venezuelan market, with a selection of spirituals and compositions sung in March 1957 in a concert featuring Pan-American music at the Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
. In 1961 Muñoz sang at the Palazzo Forte of Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
, under the auspices of the Musical Culture Academy of this city. She earned the Spring Prize of the Prague International Contest for singers of academic formation. That same year she married Pedro Alvarez Ibarra, and they had two children.
After returning to Caracas, she joined the Quinteto Contrapunto
Quinteto Contrapunto
Quinteto Contrapunto was a celebrated Venezuelan quintet which reached nation-wide and international celebrity in the early 1960s, and was very active for about a decade....
, whose first album of a series of five was recorded in 1962. Soon she returned to Europe and in London she took private classes with Rozna Side, as part of an advanced vocal technique course. At her return to Venezuela her album Venezuelan Children's Songs produced in England was released. In 1967 the album Alirio and Morella songs was released, composed of Venezuelan folk music and Christmas songs, sung by Morella and accompanied by guitarist Alirio Diaz
Alirio Diaz
Alirio Díaz is a Venezuelan classical guitarist.The eighth of eleven children, Díaz was born in Caserio La Candelaria, a small village near Carora in western Venezuela. From childhood he showed a great interest in music. At age 16 he ran away from home to Carora, where he sought better schooling...
. Also around this time she produced a series of LP albums dedicated to traditional Christmas songs, with the participation of several artists.
In addition to her numerous presentations across the country, either individually or along with figures like Ignacio Figueredo
Ignacio Figueredo
Ignacio Ventura Figueredo , was a Venezuelan folk musician and harpist.-His early successes:At age 11 he made his first public presentations in San Juan de Payara...
and Fredy Reyna
Fredy Reyna
Fredy Reyna was a Venezuelan musician, arranger and performer, regarded as the undisputed master of the Venezuelan cuatro, which he elevated to the level of a concert instrument, and one of his country's most important cultural figures in the 20th century.- Early life :Fredy Reyna was born in...
, Muñoz participated in several tours, singing in various capitals and other important cities of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the Americas. As a recognition to her talent, she was the only South American singer to be included among the new values of the 20th century in the Encyclopedia of Music (Germany 1959/Spain 1970, directed by Fred Hamel and Martín Hürdimann).
She had a vast repertoire that included folkloric music, traditional indigenous, religious and popular songs, and contemporary urban compositions. In the academic field her repertoire included concerts, masses, oratorios, requiems and operas. She was considered by many to be the best Latin American interpreter of Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
. Also, she specialized in the vocal music of Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
, Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Wolf
Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but utterly unrelated in...
, Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
and Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
.
Later years
Morella sang along with the Chamber Orchestra of the UCV, the Venezuela Symphony OrchestraVenezuela Symphony orchestra
The Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela was founded by a group of 26 professional musicians met at the invitation of the maestro Vicente Emilio Sojo following the dissolution on January, 1929 of the Union Filarmónica Nacional.This meeting took place January 15, 1930 in the Caracas Musical Declamation...
, the Caracas Philarmonic Orchestra and the Simón Bolivar National Orchestra, singing as soloist in Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Requiem
Requiem (Mozart)
The Requiem Mass in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed in Vienna in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer's death. A completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate the...
, Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
, Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
's Gloria and Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Ninth symphony
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...
. In 1982 she released an anthological edition of 12 albums, accompanied by a testimonial book by Carlos González Vegas. In 1988, she was the inaugural voice of the First Caracas Christmas proclamation, celebrated in the Plaza Bolívar of Caracas. Between 1989 and 1992, she worked as a consultant to the Culture Ministry. In 1994 the Disco Club Venezolano published a CD and a book in her honor, Morella Muñoz, Our Voice. Throughout her artistic life she received numerous awards, among them the National Music Prize in 1992.
Trivia
- In 2006 Ildemaro Torres published a biography of Morella Muñoz, for the Biblioteca Biográfica Venezolana, with the seal of El NacionalEl NacionalEl Nacional is a Venezuelan publishing company under the name C.A. Editorial El Nacional, most widely known for its El Nacional newspaper. It, along with Últimas Noticias and El Universal, are the most widely read and circulated daily national newspapers in the country, and it has an average of...
. - She was a close friend of fellow musician Aldemaro RomeroAldemaro RomeroAldemaro Romero was a Venezuelan pianist, composer, arranger and orchestral conductor. He was born in Valencia, Carabobo State.-Biography:...
.
External links
- Morella Muñoz Discography (with the Quinteto Contrapunto)
- Songs of Pilón by Morella Muñoz
- Cantos indígenas by Morella Muñoz
- Luna Decembrina by Morella Muñoz