Aurelio Ernesto Ramón de la Vega Saavedra

Composer and pedagogue, composer, lecturer, essayist and Cuban-American poet. He was dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of Oriente and gave lectures in the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Venezuela.

Born in Havana. He was educated at Colegio De La Salle, Havana, 1940-1944 (Bachelor of Arts in Humanities); University of Havana, 1944-1946 (M.A. in Diplomacy); Ada Iglesias Institute of Music, Havana, 1951-1958 (M.A. in Musicology, 1956; Doctorate in Composition, 1958). He studied composition privately with Fritz Kramer in Havana (1943-1946) and Ernst Toch in California (1947-1948). After holding important positions in his native land (Editorial Secretary of Conservatorio, official publication of the Municipal Conservatory of Havana, 1950-1953; music critic for the newspapers Alerta (1952-1957) and Diario de la Marina (1957), Havana; President, Cuban Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music, 1952-1954; President, National Council of Music of Cuba (Cuban branch of the International Council of Music of UNESCO), 1953-1957; Professor of Music and Chairman, Department of Music, University of Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, 1953-1959; Treasurer, Cuban Section of the Inter-American Music Association (Caracas), 1955-1958; Vice President, Philharmonic Orchestra of Havana, 1956-1957), he toured the United States as a lecturer (1952-1954) and settled in Los Angeles in 1959, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1966.

After serving as visiting professor of music at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (summer of 1959), he became distinguished professor of music, director of the electronic music studio, and composer in residence at California State University, Northridge, 1959-1992. In 1971 he received the Outstanding Professor Award from the entire California State University system. He is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus at California State University, Northridge.

His musicality and vast technical mastery of the materials and resources he employs give his works an original and precise finish. His music is characterized by profound conception, free discourse, and poetic expression filled with emotional dynamism. He has written numerous works in all forms and media, except opera, and since the early 1960s has been an active force in the American musical scene.

Many of his compositions are published and recorded, and most of them are performed constantly at national and international levels. His music and aesthetic ideas have been discussed and analyzed in books, newspapers, and magazines throughout the United States and Latin America.

According to Gerard Béhague, after an early affiliation with postimpressionism and the modernist romanticism of Polish composer Karol Szymanowsky, as seen in the song cycle La fuente infinita of 1944; in the early 1950s, De la Vega turned toward a chromatic language combined with a powerful rhythmic impulse; he also developed certain technical concerns that would continue to be important to him, in particular a highly virtuosic style of writing for traditional instruments, with a strong basis in structural principles.

Although he proclaimed his opposition to musical nationalism, he used melodies and typical Cuban features in some of his early works, such as Leyenda del Ariel criollo, 1953, for cello and piano.

Along with chromaticism, De la Vega was the first Cuban composer to cultivate atonalism, though with considerable independence of judgment, as in Elegía, 1954, for string orchestra, and Divertimento, 1956, for violin, cello, piano, and string orchestra.

In 1957 he began to develop an unconventional twelve-tone style with the String Quartet "In Memoriam Alban Berg".

Beginning in the 1960s he gradually abandoned serialism and began to use electronic media, open forms, aleatoric procedures, and graphic scores.

One of the first works that signals such direction is Structures, 1962, for piano and string quartet, in which he uses serialism in three of its movements and improvisatory structures in the other two. The early electronic piece Vectors, 1963, was followed by Segments, for violin and piano, and Variants, for piano, both from 1964, Interpolation, 1965, for solo clarinet with or without prerecorded sound elements.

The instrumental resources required for these works include microtonal vibrato for violin, clusters and various types of manipulation of the piano strings, and use of clarinet keys as a sound source. Furthermore, Interpolation requires different forms of embouchure positions, lowering a note without sounding it, employing sounds without specific pitch, and even the use of a specially invented mute for the clarinet.

However, with no other piece has De la Vega had as much success, in terms of combinations of expressive color and structural organization, as with Tangents, 1973, for trumpet and the same prerecorded sounds, in which he explores the timbres and expressive aspects of solo instruments in dialogue with electronic sounds.

Both are virtuosic pieces that cover the most extreme registers of the instruments and demand many different forms of articulations, attacks and phrasing, and in both the instrumental and electronic parts motivic elements are presented and developed. In Tangents these motifs possess the character of abrupt and exclamatory expressions, whose expressivity emanates fundamentally from chromaticism and the breadth of the sound range.

The aesthetic evolution of Aurelio de la Vega goes from the influence of Alban Berg to avant-garde music, but his definite and flexible personality, his need for his own expression, characterized by a profound conception of his creative work, lead him to free discourse over the materials and resources he employs in his works.

In 1978 he was awarded the coveted Friedheim Prize from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., and has been nominated three times for the Latin Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition: in 2009 for Variación del Recuerdo for string orchestra, in 2012 for Prelude No. 1 for Piano, and in 2017 for Recordatio for soprano, woodwind quintet, and string quintet.

The nature of Aurelio de la Vega is very complex, like that of every creator of art, and can be based on a history that begins to become conscious around age fourteen, when he writes his first musical work. From that time forward there are avid readings, love for painting (which he practices concretely for a few years), incursions into philosophy, university career in law, doctorate in music, travels, increasing performances of his works, offers lectures, receives commissions and creates new works, suffers the impact of the death of his first wife, Sara Lequerica, pianist, whom he had married at age 21, and the joy of his second marriage to American soprano Anne Marie Ketchum. Everything is comfortable enjoyment in the beautiful courtyard of his house in Northridge, with friends, listening to the beautiful flow of the Italian fountain that Anne Marie insisted on installing.

I am an exuberant Cuban man in gestures, an enjoyer of a good cigar, a loud speaker, capable of great laughter, desirous of hearing a good joke, quick to give his wife, in public, a great kiss. I am at the same time a German man: I need the strictest order around me, I compose music for the mind, for vital reasoning, for spiritual development, not for the shaking of hips and buttocks. I am also an Italian man: I intensely love beauty—from vibrant resin fountain feathers to a painting, to a woman, to a ring, to table utensils. I equally love the label of a wine bottle, a new necklace on my wife's neck, a fresh flower in my garden.

Compositions

ORCHESTRA
Overture to A Serious Farce ("Overture to a serious farce") (1950)
Introduction and Episode ("Introduction and episode") (1952) - commissioned by Frieder Weissmann
Elegy ("Elegy"), for string orchestra (1954)
Divertimento for piano, violin, cello, and string orchestra (1956)
Symphony in Four Parts (1960) - commissioned by Inocente Palacios for the Third Inter-American Music Festival
Intrata (1972) - commissioned by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
Goodbye ("Adiós") (1977) - commissioned by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
Variation of the Remembrance ("Variation of the Remembrance"), for string orchestra (1999) - commissioned by the Culver City Chamber Orchestra

CHAMBER: INSTRUMENTAL
The Death of Pan ("La muerte de Pan"), for violin and piano (1948) - commissioned by Carlos Agostini
Trio for violin, cello, and piano (1949) - commissioned by the Concert Society, Havana
Soliloquy ("Soliloquio"), for viola and piano (1950) - commissioned by Alberto Fajardo
Legend of the Creole Ariel ("La leyenda del criollo Ariel"), for cello and piano (1953) - commissioned by cellist Adolfo Odnoposoff and pianist Berthe Huberman
String Quartet in five movements, "In Memoriam Alban Berg" (1957) - Publication Prize of the Lyceum of Havana, Igor Markevitch, president of the jury
Woodwind Quintet (1959)
Trio for flute, oboe, and clarinet (1960)
Structures, for piano and string quartet (1962) - commissioned by the Coolidge Foundation, Library of Congress
Segments ("Segmentos"), for violin and piano (1964) - commissioned by Robert Gross
Exametron, for flute, cello, and four percussionists (1965)
Exospheres, for oboe and piano (1966) - commissioned by oboist John Ellis
Labdanum, for flute, vibraphone, and viola (1970) - commissioned by Peter Morelenbaum
Septicilium, for solo clarinet and small instrumental ensemble (flute, harp, piano-celesta, one percussionist, violin, and cello) (1974) - commissioned by the 1973 New Music Festival, University of California, Los Angeles
Olep ed Arudamot, for any number of instruments and/or voices (1974) - commissioned by Gloria Morris
The Infinite Square, for any number of instruments and/or voices (1975) - commissioned by Gloria Morris
Andamar-Ramadna, for any number of instruments and/or voices (1975) - commissioned by Gloria Morris
The Magic Labyrinth, for any number of instruments and/or voices (1975) - commissioned by Gloria Morris
Astralis, for any number of instruments and/or voices (1977) - commissioned by Francisco Lequerica
Nones, for any number of instruments and/or voices (1977) - commissioned by Francisco Lequerica
Corde, for any number of instruments and/or voices (1977) - commissioned by Francisco Lequerica
Galandiacoa, for clarinet and guitar (1982) - commissioned by Julian Spear
Tropimapal, for nine instruments (flute, clarinet, bassoon, trombone, one percussionist, violin, viola, cello, and contrabass) (1983) - commissioned by the American Chamber Symphony of Los Angeles

CHAMBER: VOCAL

Infinite Fountain ("La fuente infinita"), song cycle for soprano and piano on poems by José Francisco Zamora (1944) - commissioned by Magda Medina
The Encounter ("The Encounter"), for contralto and piano, on a poem by Rabindranath Tagore (1950)
Cantata for two sopranos, contralto, and twenty-one instruments, on poems by Roberto Fernández Retamar (1958)
Inflorescence ("Inflorescencia"), for soprano, bass clarinet, and prerecorded sounds, on a poem by Aurelio de la Vega (1976)
Adramante, for soprano and piano, on a poem by Octavio Armand (1985) - commissioned by the University of California, Santa Barbara, in honor of composer Ernest Krenek
Assonant ("Asonante"), for soprano, dancer(s), seven instruments (flute, trumpet, trombone, piano, violin, cello, and contrabass) and prerecorded sounds, on a poem by Aurelio de la Vega (1985) - commissioned by Franco Saltieri
Magic and Inventions ("Magias e Invenciones"), song cycle for soprano and piano on poems by Gastón Baquero (1986) - commissioned by Fundación Música, Zaragoza, Spain
Andamar-Ramadna (Version II), for any number of instruments and/or voices (1988) - commissioned by Gloria Morris
Testimony, for female voice, flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello, on poems by Armando Valladares (1990) - commissioned by the Contemporary Music Encounters of Buenos Aires
Madrigals of Then ("Madrigales de otro tiempo"), for SATB a cappella choir, on poems by Heberto Padilla (1991)
Transparent Songs, for soprano, clarinet, cello, and piano, on poems by José Martí (1995) - commissioned by Florida International University, Miami
Variation of the Remembrance, Version II ("Variation of the Remembrance", Version II), on a poem by Aurelio de la Vega, for six voices, clarinet, and two percussionists (2005) - commissioned by the Moldenhauer Foundation *, The Library of Congress
Recordatio ("Remembrance"), for soprano, woodwind quintet, and string quintet, on a poem by Emilio Ballagas (2011) - commissioned by North/South Consonance

PIANO

Three Preludes (Three preludes) (1944)
Rondo (1948)
Epigram ("Epigrama") (1953)
Slow Dance ("Slow dance") (1956)
Minuet (1957)
Toccata (1957)
Antinomies (1967) - commissioned by Peter Hewitt
Homage ("Homenaje"), "In Memoriam Heitor Villa-Lobos" (1987) - commissioned by José Eduardo Martins

GUITAR

Sonorous Clouds (1975)
Bifloreo (1992) - commissioned by guitarist Anton Machleder

SOLO INSTRUMENTS

Interpolation, for solo clarinet with or without prerecorded sounds (1965) - commissioned by clarinetist John Neufeld
Eleven Colors ("Eleven Colors"), for solo bassoon with or without projected transparencies of color drawings in mixed technique by the composer (1981) - commissioned by the Klimt Foundation for bassoonist Donald Christlieb
Memorial of Absence ("Memorial de la Ausencia"), for solo cello (1985) - commissioned by Petroso Novares

SOLO INSTRUMENTS WITH PRERECORDED SOUNDS

Interpolation, for solo clarinet with or without prerecorded sounds (1965) - commissioned by Howard Pineridge
Tangents, for violin and prerecorded sounds (1973) - commissioned by Endré Granat
Para-Tangents, for trumpet and prerecorded sounds (1973) - commissioned by Thomas Stevens

ELECTRONIC MUSIC (solo tape)

Vectors, monophonic tape (1963)
Extrapolation, stereophonic tape (1981) - commissioned by the University of California, Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for the Los Angeles 80s Music Festival