Enrique Mejía Arredondo

Enrique Mejía Arredondo (born December 24, 1901 in Santo Domingo , † February 5, 1951 ) was a Dominican composer and conductor.

life and career

Mejía had first music lessons from his mother and from his grandfather, the composer José María Arredondo Alfonseca . He then attended Américo Lugo Romero's piano class , studied harmony with José de Jesús Ravelo , orchestration with Enrique Casal Chapí and took violin lessons from the Austrian violinist Willy Kleinberg, who lives in Santo Domingo .

In 1932 he became the founding director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Santo Domingo , which he directed for eight years. From 1941 he was sub-director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional . With José Ramírez Peralta and others he founded the Sociedad de Autores y Compositores Dominicanos , which he directed until his death.

Mejía composed waltzes ( Manantial ) and songs ( Quisiera ) as his first works at the age of sixteen . The first major composition was the Obertura para Orquesta 12 de julio , with which he won a composition competition. His first symphony was described by the music critic Adolfo Salazar as una de las más notables en su género en Hispanoamérica . It was dedicated to the founding father of the Dominican Republic, Francisco del Rosario Sánchez , and was premiered in 1941 by the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional under the direction of Enrique Casal Chapí. A performance in New York with the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Franz Black followed in 1946. In the same year it was performed under his own direction at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City .

The symphonic poem Cuento Nocturno was performed by Julián Carrillo with the Orquesta Sinfónica de México . Mejía's composition Dos Evocaciones was composed in 1941 and dedicated to Enrique Casal Chapí. The Poema Sinfónico Renacimiento was dedicated to Generalissimo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina . During a concert in La Vega, where he conducted Schubert's 5th Symphony, Mejía suffered a heart attack and was admitted to a nearby clinic. A few months later, at the age of forty-nine, he died of heart disease. Posthumously he was named Caballero of the Orden de Juan Pablo Duarte .

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personal data
SURNAME	Mejía Arredondo, Enrique
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dominican composer and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH	December 24, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH	Santo Domingo
DATE OF DEATH	5th February 1951