Cuba——Julian Orbon

Julian (de Soto) Orbon (1925-1991):

(b Avilés, 7 Aug 1925; d Miami Beach, 20 May 1991). Cuban composer of Spanish birth. He studied at the Conservatory of Oviedo (1935) and then moved to Havana, where he began composing at an early age and had lessons from José Ardévol. From 1942 to 1949 he was a member of the Grupo de Renovación Musical, and he was active as a music critic, essayist and pianist at concerts of contemporary Cuban music. In 1946 he studied with Copland at Tanglewood. During the 1940s and 1950s he was closely associated with the literary group Orígenes, and wrote several essays for their review. He was director of the Orbón Conservatory, Havana (1946–60), founded by his father Benjamín, and taught composition at the National Conservatory in Mexico City (1960–63). In 1964 he settled in New York; he taught at Lenox College, Washington University, St Louis, Barnard College and the Hispanic Institute of Columbia University. He received two Guggenheim fellowships (1959, 1969) and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1967). His Spanish-Cuban music has been influenced by a wide range of musical and literary interests, including Catholic liturgy, Gregorian chant, the music of Falla and the Halffters, and contemporary poetry; moreover, his close friendships with Chávez and Villa-Lobos have had their effect. Whether in the formal neo-classicism of his early works or the more expansive, vigorous and romantic traits of his later style, his music has always been marked by strict structural design. Occasionally he used ‘white’ Cuban and Afro-Cuban rhythms, as in Pregón and the Danzas sinfónicas.

Works

• Sonata Homenaje al Padre Soler
• Prelude and Dance, for solo guitar (1950)
• Canción para nuestro niño
• Romance de Fontefrida
• Capricho Concertante
• El Pregón
• Clarinet Quintet
• Symphony in C (1945)
• String Quartet (1951)
• Three Symphonic Versions (1954)
• Himnus ad Galli Cantum (1956)
• Symphonic Dances (1957)
• Concerto Grosso (1958)
• Tres Cantigas del Rey (1960)
• Monte Gelboé, Cantata(1962)
• Partitas 1, 2 and 3 (1963)
• Fantasía Tiento
• Liturgia en tres días
• Homenaje a la Tonadilla

Thanks for Aurelio Cunha' s work.
Photos by Angelica Bautista.