| Antonio Estévez | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Born | January 1, 1916 Calabozo, Guárico, Venezuela |
| Died | November 26, 1988 (aged 72) Caracas, Venezuela |
| Genres | Classical |
| Occupations | conductor and composer |
| Instruments | Oboe |
| Associated acts | Caracas Martial Band Venezuela Symphony Orchestra Central University of Venezuela Choral |
Antonio Estévez Aponte (Calabozo (Guárico), January 1, 1916 - Caracas, November 26, 1988), 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. He began his musical studies in Caracas in 1923, and returned to his native city of Calabozo in 1925, where from 1926 he played the flugelhorn in the town band. In 1930, he returned to Caracas, where he studied clarinet under Miguel Gallo, and, from 1934, composition under Vicente Emilio Sojo at the Escuela de Música y Declamación (also called the Escuela de Santa Capilla or Escuela José Ángel Lamas). In 1932, he joined the Caracas Martial Band under the direction of Pedro Elías Gutiérrez, and in 1934, the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra as second oboe. His first choral works, Rocío and El Jazminero estrellado, date from 1938. In 1942, he was married to Flor Roffé. In the following year, he founded the University Chorus of the Central University of Venezuela.
He graduated from the Escuela de Música y Declamación with degrees in oboe performance (1942) and composition (1944). In 1945, he obtained a scholarship from the Education Ministry to continue his studies of music in Europe and the United States.
He returned to Caracas in 1948, where he began developing a style of nationalistic music, working on his Concerto for Orchestra and his Cantata Criolla, which was finished in 1954. He traveled to London in 1961, with the purpose of updating his musical language, and later to Paris in 1963, where he worked at the Office de Radio-Télévision Française under Pierre Schaeffer. In Paris he formed a friendship with the sculptor and painter Jesús Rafael Soto and began experimenting with electronic music. In 1971 he returned to Venezuela and, with the support of the Simón Bolívar Center, founded the Instituto de Fonología Musical, which he directed until 1979.
He was awarded the Venezuelan National Music Prize in 1949 and again in 1987, and the Premio Anual de Sinfónicas in 1957. Also in 1987, he was awarded an Honoris Causa degree by the Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela.
Among his most important works are the Cantata criolla and Mediodía en el llano, Obertura sesquicentenaria. The Cantata criolla is perhaps the best-known nationalistic Venezuelan composition. Other well-known works include, Cromovibrafonía and Cromovibrafonía múltiple, which he composed as ambient music for the exposition of the works of de Soto en Montreal in 1967 and for the Jesús Soto Museum of Modern Art in Ciudad Bolívar, inaugurated in 1973.