Composer : Antonio Lauro
Biography:
Antonio Lauro was a son Italian immigrants Armida Cutroneo and Antonio Lauro Ventura. He was born in 1917 in Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela. His father was a guitarist, who first introduced him to the music life. When he was born, his father composed and named a song after him. He named it “Mi progenito”, which means my child in english. His early childhood was normal until his father passed away and he was forced to move to Caracas in 1926 to his maternal grandparents. His grandfather is the first individual who guides Antonio to learn how to play the piano. In Caracas, Antonio had was exposed to many opportunities for him to grow in the music career. Some of the institution present were Centro Musical en 1915, La Union Filarmonica in 1922, el Orfeon Lamas and la Orquesta Sinfornica de Venezuela.
It was in 1932, where he was influenced tremendously by a Paraguayan artist Raul Borges. He not only had a great impact in Antonio, but many other young artist in this period o time. In 1935, he eventually got a group together to form “ Los Cantores del Tropico”. This was a start to cuarteto, which eventually became a trio, which allowed them to live off the music career. Eventually this trio separates and Antonio is recruited by Vincente Emilio Sojo to finish his studies as classical music compositor. In 1947, he graduates and becomes a compositor and starts to composes different songs. He particularly writes and focus on Western classical traditional music. He graduates with a titles of a soloists, chorus and orchestra and piece named cantaclaro.
Antonio begins to grow more as a guitarist, specially focusing on Venezuelan waltz. Eventually he creates great music that spreads all over the world. During the 50’s Venezuela failed to establish a democracy and there was civil war. Antonio, took side to against the dictatorship and eventually got captured. He was imprisoned for going against the dictatorship of Marcos Peres Jimenez. In prison, Antonio wrote two of his major work of music. He composed la Sonata para guitarra and the famous Suite Venezolana. After being liberated from prison, he focused on his guitar career. He work under different musical educational institutions as a teacher. Eventually years after being released, Lauro successfully establishes an institution with other colleagues that focus on Folk Venezuelan Music.
On his last year Antonio had a great success performing. He toured all over Europe eventually receiving the title of Hijo Ilustre de Ciudad Bolivar. He eventually also won the Premio Nacional de Musica en 1985 for his contribution in cultural music to Venezuela. This lead for him and his work to be known all over the world. . Lauro’s Valses Venezolanos were originally composed as a solo guitar pieces and were all named the first piece after his niece, Tatiana, and the second one after his sister Andreina. The last piece was named after a town he loved.
Lauro was the first individual to perform major work with the guitar in Venezuela. He was the artists who introduced the guitar as significant instrument in his decade and the decades to come. His pupils became great musical performers who included Raul Borges, Rodrigo Riera, Jose Rafael,an Alirio Diaz. HIs pupils not only represented his musical work, but also expanded his name and his work in the music world. His musical career eventually became so popular that Andres Segovia and John Williams became interested about him. At one point he became the official guitarist of Caracas Broadcasting, which also included a radio program.
Discography: Antonio Lauro de Valses, Concerto, sonata Suite Venezolano and Suite and Homenaje a John Duarte.
Art/Media:
Sources:
- http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0716-27902012000200012&script=sci_arttext
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