Full Name Luis Szaran Nationality Paraguayan | Known for Musician Name Luis Szaran | |
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Born 24 September 1953 Encarnacion, Paraguay Notable work "Meditacion por la caida del Muro de Berlin para violin o violoncello y cuerdas""Preludio Sinfonico""Impresiones del Chaco: Chaidi" Awards Honored by the Italian government with the title of Official Knight of the Republic | ||
Sinfon a en plenilunio orquesta sonidos de mi tierra luis szar n
Luis Szarán is a Paraguayan musician, orchestra director, composer and musical researcher. He has directed symphonic and chamber orchestras in America and Europe. He is director of the Asunción City Symphonic Orchestra (OSCA, for its name in Spanish Orquesta Sinfónica de la Ciudad de Asunción) and the Phylomusica Orchestra of Asunción.
Contents
- Sinfon a en plenilunio orquesta sonidos de mi tierra luis szar n
- Maestro luis szar n director sonidos de la tierra
- Childhood and Youth
- Career
- Work
- Sounds of the Earth
- References
He has also directed plays of his own in numerous international festivals and has obtained the National Award of Music, given by the National Parliament in 1997.
Maestro luis szar n director sonidos de la tierra
Childhood and Youth
Luis Szarán was born in Encarnación, Itapúa, in Paraguay on 24 September 1953.
He studied music with the teacher José Luis Miranda in Asunción.
In 1975 he obtained a scholarship to master his studies, given by the Italian government. He studied orchestra direction in the Santa Cecilia Conservatory, in Rome. His teachers were Massimo Pradella, Piero Bellugi and Mario Migliardi.
Later on, he took courses of improvement in the Colón Theater, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with teacher Hans Swarowsky.
In 1977 he continued his education in Chigiana de Sierra Academy and the Instituto Francesco Canneti de Vicenza.
Career
Luis is dedicated to musical research. The results of his work have been published in many books in Paraguay, Chile, Spain, Italy and United States. Some of his outstanding work is about Native-American music and Paraguayan popular music; also transcriptions of the music in the Jesuit Missions.
Since 1989, he had been the director of the Paraguayan Area for the Spanish Hispanic-American Encyclopedic Dictionary of Music, organized by the Author General Society of Spain.
His compositions have been presented in many international festivals, such as Festival de Música Contemporánea de Ouro Preto in Brazil, in 1975 and 1978; Encuentro de Compositores de Latinoamérica in Santiago, Chile 1988 and 1989, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in 1989, and in Buenos Aires in 1990.
His piece "Variaciones en Puntas" for winds quintet was presented in the Youth International Festival of Beyreuth, Germany during the closing concert. This festival was organized for the Centennial of Franz Liszt in 1986. It was also presented in the São Paulo’s Musica Nova Festival, among others.
Work
Numerous orchestras in many countries of the world played his most outstanding compositions. Some of them were:
In addition, many solo artists have performed his compositions, such as: Eduardo Fernández (guitar), Götz Bernau (violin), Vihn Pham (violin), Nicholas Ktichen (violin), Daniel Luzko and José Luis Miranda (piano), Mami Sakuda Fiorentini (soprano), Antonio Dourthe (bass), Eladio Pérez González (baritone).
Sounds of the Earth
Without a doubt, the project "Sonidos de la tierra" (Sounds of the Earth), is the most important and elaborated communitarian project about musical culture in Paraguayan history. The project is being emulated nowadays in other countries in America.
The project is directed towards the kids and young people, and was created by Luis Szarán himself, who through the music schools, bands and cultural associations, gives access to musical education to 3.000 people of scarce resources, in 72 communities in the interior of the country.
The program is inspired in the concept of "education for the art"; it was initiated in 2002 with the support of the AVINA Foundation, expanding it with alliances with other organizations like; the National Parliament, FONDEC, ITAIPU Bi-National, Asuncion’s Philharmonic Society, the Embassies of Germany, United States, France and Italy, Partners of the Americans (Paraguay-Kansas), Culture Direction of Asunción Municipality and others. More than 100 organizations, municipalities, business and sponsors are involved.
In 2005, Luis Szarán was awarded with the Skoll Awards for The Social Entrepreneurships, given by the Skoll Foundation of California (USA). This award made possible to expand the project to other sector of society in need. The same year Sounds from my land is included as a program of Fundación Tierranuestra.
On 16 May 2011, Luis Szarán conducted the Paraguayan Bicentennial Chamber Orchestra, a musical ensemble brought together especially to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Paraguay, 1811-2011. The orchestra comprised leading members of the City of Asunción Symphony Orchestra, The National Symphony Orchestra, plus some of the most gifted young musicians of the Sounds of the Earth Project. The program offered an overview of Paraguay's own compositions from the 19th century to the present, and included works in a variety of styles. The celebrations were held at Church House, near Westminster Abbey, London, and the event was hosted by His Excellency Mr Miguel Solano-Lopez, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary representing Paraguay in London.