Alfredo Diez Nieto

A prominent figure in Cuban culture. Musician and composer, but above all a teacher. He is considered one of the most significant creators in the universe of music in his country.

Alfredo Diez Nieto was born in La Habana. He began his music studies at the Conservatorio Iranzo, where he took courses in solfège, piano, music history, counterpoint, fugue, composition, orchestration and pedagogy. He received instruction from a faculty composed, among other eminent pedagogues, of Juana Prendes, Rosario Iranzo, Jaime Prats, Amadeo Roldán and Pedro Sanjuán.

He completed his training at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in Nueva York (Estados Unidos), where he was a student of notable masters: Edward Steuerman, in piano; Bernard Wagenaar, in composition, and Fritz Mahler in orchestral direction.

From a very young age he practiced teaching, as a professor of harmony, orchestration, piano, counterpoint, music history, fugue, composition and orchestration, at the Instituto Musical Kohly, the conservatories Iranzo, Costa, Bosch, Alejandro García Caturla and Amadeo Roldán; at the Escuela Nacional de Arte and at the Instituto Superior de Arte.

He inaugurated the Instituto Musical de Investigaciones Folklóricas, together with musicologist Odilio Urfé, on October 19, 1949. This was one of the foundational events led by Diez Nieto during his extensive and fruitful career. The Instituto Musical de Investigaciones Folklóricas was established with the objective of rescuing, compiling, classifying, studying, disseminating and defending all manifestations of Cuban musical culture heritage, especially expressions rooted in popular tradition. It was recognized in 1963, following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, as the Seminario de la Música Popular.

At that institution, Diez Nieto organized and directed, beginning in 1967, the Orquesta Popular de Conciertos —which in 1971 took the name of Gonzalo Roig—, made up of musicians from different dance orchestras and military bands, retired instrumentalists and amateurs. Regarding his work leading this group, Odilio Urfé expressed that, thanks to his perseverance and technical ability, it was possible to reconcile such diverse musicians and to hold two concerts (on April 10 and June 12 of 1967); one at the Seminario de Música Popular of the Consejo Nacional de Cultura, home of the orchestra, and another at the old Paula church.

The importance of the work of that ensemble, made up of instrumentalists not dedicated to the cultivation of academic music, was confirmed by their performances of works by Juan Sebastián Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, George Federico Händel (whose Concerto for Organ and Orchestra premiered in Cuba, with Manuel Suárez as soloist), Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Félix Mendelssohn, Ignacio Cervantes, Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes and Alejandro García Caturla.

Under the baton of Alfredo Diez Nieto, the Orquesta Popular de Conciertos accompanied soloists Lucy Provedo, Yolanda Hernández, Susy Oliva and Emelina López, sopranos; Roberto Urbay, Julio Hamel, Alberto Joya and Frank Emilio Flyn, pianists; Rafael Lay, Armando Ortega and Celso Valdés Santandreu, violinists; Richard Egües and Alfredo Portela, flutists; María de los Ángeles Castellanos, oboist; Flores Chaviano, guitarist, and Rubén Noriega, clarinetist. In 1972 the Orchestra experienced one of its moments of maximum splendor, when it performed at the Amadeo Roldán theater, the premier venue for academic or classical music in Cuba.

As part of the work carried out by Diez Nieto in the field of education, in 1959 he founded and directed the Conservatorio Alejandro García Caturla, in the Havana municipality of Marianao, at the request of Eulalio González Freyre, then director of culture for that territory.

Entering the sixties decade of the twentieth century, Diez Nieto designed study programs for professional musicians at the Seminario de Música Popular. For one year, from 1963 to 1964, he assumed the direction of the Escuela de Instructores de Arte. When the Instituto Superior de Arte was founded in 1976, he became associated with its classrooms, a task he continued to fulfill after his retirement.

As a pianist, he offered innumerable recitals. Likewise, as a conductor he led the symphony orchestra of the Escuela Nacional de Música and that of Camagüey.

As a composer, Diez Nieto has followed the nationalist line of Amadeo Roldán, Jaime Prats and Pedro Sanjuán, and has developed Cuban music within grand forms, but with modern content. Researcher Radamés Giro has observed that, from a harmonic point of view, his music obeys neither a purely tonal plan nor a pure folkloric theme, since the themes are of his own invention.

Compositions by Alfredo Diez Nieto have been heard in España, the defunct Unión de Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas, Bulgaria, Checoslovaquia, Hungría and Polonia. His repertoire includes works for bands, guitar, piano and organ; chamber and symphonic music, among other formats.

In an assessment of his overall projection, it can be affirmed that Alfredo Diez Nieto is a composer formed under the influences of Amadeo Roldán, associated with consistency at the musical staff and fidelity to the most rigorous proposals of symphonism and chamber music. His creation as a composer identifies him as one of Cuba's most notable musicians, and his prestige made him worthy of the Premio Nacional de Música and the Premio Nacional de Enseñanza Artística, which were conferred upon him in 2005.

The Universidad de las Artes bestowed the Doctorado Honoris Causa upon the maestro and the Presidencia de la República de Cuba, at the proposal of the Ministerio de Cultura, granted at age 101 the Orden Félix Varela de Primer Grado to Alfredo Diez Nieto, composer, pianist, orchestral conductor and Cuban pedagogue.