Arts Blog

Born in Cuba, violinist and composer José White Lafitte showed signs of musical talent from a young age. At 19 years old, White Lafitte performed the violin publicly for the first time with American pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk. The performance’s success led to White Lafitte’s enrollment at the Paris Conservatory, where he won the First Grand Prize for Violin within his first year of study.

White Lafitte went on to enjoy a fruitful career as a touring performer, composer, and educator. Fun fact: one of his students was George Enescu.

For over a decade, White Lafitte worked as the director of the Imperial Conservatory in Rio de Janeiro, as well as the court composer of Emperor Pedro II. As a composer, his works often feature the violin and elegantly straddle the traditions of the romantic era with musical features from his homeland.

The prolific career of Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chávez spanned over 50 years. Appreciated as one of the most influential musical figures in Mexican history, Chávez created a distinct sound world that honored his home country. His emergence into adulthood coincided with the end of the Mexican Revolution in 1921, after which a new cultural nationalism emerged that made a significant impression on the young composer.

Chávez wrote over 200 works, from ballets and symphonies to pieces for piano and small ensemble. As a conductor, he led nearly every major orchestra in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe. However, perhaps his most significant impact was his advocacy for increased access to the arts in Mexico. As founder and head of the Orquesta Sinfónica de México (OSM), Chávez organized concerts for workers and children. He even took the orchestra out to rural Mexican provinces, bringing classical music to many audiences for the first time.

Speaking of Carlos Chávez, the illustrious composer taught our next subject, José Pablo Moncayo, at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City. Moncayo was a pianist and percussionist, though he is best remembered today as a conductor rather than a composer. His orchestral piece, Huapango, is a popular choice for the concert hall. Along with three other Mexican composers, Moncayo formed the “Group of Four” to foster a nationalist school of Mexican music, similar to France’s “Les Six” and Russia’s “The Five.” He championed idioms from Mexican folk music in his works and sought to incorporate these sounds into the Classical vernacular.

Fun fact: Moncayo was invited to study composition with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood during the summer of 1942.

Argentinian composer Carlos Guastavino showed talent for the piano from an early age. A self-proclaimed lover of melody and song, Guastavino would write hundreds of songs over the course of his career (many of which have not been published), leading admirers to claim him as “The Argentine Schubert.” He was devoted to tonal harmony and traditional musical forms amid the rise of experimental musical styles in the mid-20^th century, and he was inspired by the folk music of Argentina. Guastavino felt that simple, memorable melodies were the way to a listener’s heart.

Guastavino set words by León Benarós to music in over 60 songs and maintained a long, collaborative friendship with the poet. In addition to art song, Guastavino also wrote works for orchestra, piano, and guitar.

Violeta Parra was a highly influential Chilean composer, singer-songwriter, and artist. Her father taught her and her siblings to sing and play the guitar from a young age. Unsurprisingly, Parra took to songwriting right away with passion. She was particularly inspired by Chilean folk music, which led her to co-create a new musical genre—Nueva canción chilena (“Chilean New Song”), merging native folk music with themes of social justice. Parra endeavored to keep the traditions of Chile, especially those from rural regions, alive for future generations.

Recognized as the “Mother of Latin American Folk,” Parra mastered the art of storytelling through her songs. Parra’s work as a folk musician also proved that the boundaries between classical and popular music are artificial, with recordings of her music by classical artists such as Elīna Garanča and Yo-Yo Ma.

Composer José Elizondo was born in Mexico and currently resides in the U.S. He holds degrees in Music and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); he also studied music at Harvard University. Elizondo has built a dual career for himself as both a composer and an engineer—his engineering work focuses on speech-recognition technology, combining his interests in computer science, linguistics, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence.

As a composer, Elizondo has become best known for his compositions written for cello despite never learning how to play the string instrument. While studying music in college, Elizondo was introduced to the cello after hearing a performance by Carlos Prieto and becoming immensely inspired by the musician. Elizondo’s music is regularly performed by distinguished artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Allison Eldredge, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and many more. Elizondo prides himself on writing music that is joyful, heartfelt, and accessible to all audiences.