Pedro Rivera Toledo

Pedro Rivera Toledo (born March 9, 1942 in Santurce ) is a Puerto Rican composer, arranger, saxophonist and conductor.

Rivera had his first music lessons with the conductor Ramon Usera and the composer Amaury Veray . At the conservatory he studied orchestral conducting with Juan José Castro . In the late 1960s he played the saxophone in the bands of Tommy Olivencia and Mario Ortíz . In 1970 he conducted the Ed Sullivan Show Orchestra . He traveled to Venezuela with Tito Rodríguez's orchestra, where he appeared on television alongside Tata Palau , Ray Santos and Johnny Blanca .

During his career, Rivera has worked with musicians Danny Rivera , Chucho Avellanet , Lucecita Benítez and Chabela Rodríguez, and also with Nat King Cole , Paul Anka , Tom Jones , Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald . He has worked as an arranger, composer and musical director in theater and film productions and won first prize at the Primer Festival de la Canción Latina in Mexico for his arrangement of Guillermo Venegas Lloveras ' Génesis . As a composer and arranger, he also worked on productions by his friend José Vega Santana (Remi, the clown) for children's theater (including El Soldadito de Plomo , Salvemos el Planeta ). At the Universidad Interamericana , which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2017, he taught arrangement and orchestration and directed the saxophone orchestra.

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personal data
SURNAME	Rivera Toledo, Pedro
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Puerto Rican composer, arranger, saxophonist and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH	March 9, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH	Santurce (Puerto Rico)