Eduardo Hernández Moncada

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Eduardo Hernández Moncada (born September 24, 1899 in Xalapa , Veracruz , † December 31, 1995 in Mexico City ) was a Mexican composer, pianist and conductor.

Hernández Moncada, who came from a family of musicians, had music lessons as a child and worked as a musical accompanist for silent film screenings in his hometown. From 1918 he studied at the Conservatorio Libre of Mexico City with Rafael J. Tello , Joaquín Beristáin and Aurelio Barrios y Morales . He also worked as a cinema and café pianist.

In 1929 he came to the Orquesta Sinfónica de México at the invitation of Carlos Chávez , where he worked as a pianist until 1936, then as deputy director until 1943. In 1939 he was given the management of a theater project entitled Upa y Apa , in which artists such as Xavier Villaurrutia , Julio Bracho , Carlos Mérida and Agustín Lazo participated. The music was composed by José Rolón , Silvestre Revueltas , Candelario Huízar and Blas Galindo , Tata Nacho and Alfonso Esparza Oteo . The play was performed in Mexico City and then in New York City. The following year he conducted a series of concerts at the Museum of Modern Arts . In 1948 he became conductor of the orchestra of the Conservatorio Nacional de Música , where he had been teaching since 1929.

From 1944, Hernández Moncada was choirmaster at the Ópera Nacional . In 1947 he was one of the founders of the Academia de Ópera , an institution of the Conservatorio Nacional de Música, which should enable students of the Conservatory to develop their own opera performances. Operas by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi , Claude Debussy , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Giacomo Puccini , Christoph Willibald Gluck and Ricardo Castro Herrera were performed. Singers such as Oralia Domínguez , Hugo Avendaño and Plácido Domingo emerged from the academy that Hernández Mancada directed until 1956 .

Works

  • Primera sinfonía for orchestra, 1942
  • Antesala , ballet pantomime for orchestra, 1952
  • Costeña for piano, 1962
  • Tres estampas marítimas for piano, 1969
  • Rapsodia de Sotavento for violin and piano, 1974
  • Sonatina for piano, 1974
  • Tres sonetos de sor Juana for voice and piano, 1979
  • Tres sonetos de sor Juana for soprano and string orchestra, 1981