Beatriz del Carmen Corona Rodríguez

Composer, choir director, arranger, and music producer. One of the most solid and prestigious composers of Choral Music in Cuba. She is one of the most prolific current composers. Her catalog of choral works as well as her arrangements for voices in different formats define her as an important composer of Choral Music today. First woman to win the Ibermúsicas Prize for Choral Composition.

She began her studies of piano and choral direction at the "Alejandro García Caturla" Conservatory in Havana and continued them until 1982 at the National School of Music with teacher Alina Orraca, finishing them at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory with professor Teresa Pentón.

She directed the Professional Choir of Cienfuegos for one year and taught at several conservatories in Havana and Camagüey. She worked as Music Advisor at the National Presidency of the Organization of Pioneers of Cuba.

As a professor, she taught Choral Direction, Score Reading at the piano, and Ensemble Practice at the National School of Music. In 1992 she conducted a working tour through different cities in Sweden. In 1995 she taught workshops on Choral Music and her work in Argentina. In that same year she worked teaching and conducting choral arrangement workshops in Venezuela.

Beatriz Corona has set to music the poetic works of José Martí, Nicolás Guillén, Mario Benedetti, Pablo Neruda, Adolfo Martí Fuentes, César Vallejo, Dora Alonso, and Dulce María Loynaz, among others. Although she has not completed formal academic studies in composition, her work in this field has been guided by musicians such as: Harold Gramatges and Alfredo Diez Nieto.

She was selected as Guest of Honor at the XXII National Festival of Chamber Music "A Tempo con Caturla" held in 2018.

Artistic Work
As a composer, she has managed to offer a vast musical production. Her catalog contains around 200 choral works in different formats:
orchestral music,
chamber music,
religious works,
incidental music for film (for the films Amor vertical and Sabor Latino), (the latter with her brother Kiki Corona).

Her interest in the human voice as an unsurpassable sound medium predominates in them.

Her music enriches the repertoire of almost all the choirs in our music schools, as well as choral, symphonic, and chamber ensembles such as the choirs Exaudi, Nacional, and the Schola Cantorum Coralina. The Santiago de Cuba Symphony Orchestra and the Trío D'Camera directed by pianist Marita Rodríguez.

She has been heard in the United States, Norway, Finland, Germany, and Spain. Her work Un marinero, with texts by Matías Antón, was selected as a mandatory work to be performed by the choirs that participated in the Composition Competition of the Festival of Polyphony and Habaneras held in Torrevieja, Spain, in 2004.

Her album Aire Nocturno was nominated for CUBADISCO 2002 in the categories of Recording, Musical Production, and Choral Music. The CD includes a selection of her choral work of excellent artistic and professional quality. The young musicians choirs Vocal Leo and Coro Polifónico de La Habana of great vocal quality perform under the direction of choir directors Corina Campos Morales and Carmen Collado López respectively.

Awards and Distinctions
In 1979 she participates with the Chamber Choir of the National School of Art under the direction of Alina Orraca at the VIII Festival of Musical Youth and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria, where they obtain the Second Prize in the Choirs category.

She has been awarded in several composition competitions, among which stand out:
La edad de Oro,
National Music Competition of the Department of Artistic Education,
Esteban Salas Choral Composition Competition,
National Competition of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).

With her album Aire Nocturno she obtained the First Prize at the International Fair CUBADISCO 2000 in the Category: Choral Music.

She has received the Abril Prize on two occasions.

She holds the Distinction for National Culture.

She is the first woman to win the Ibermúsicas Prize for Choral Composition, in 2021.

Works
Incidental Music
El príncipe jardinero. Musical comedy, 1991-1992.

Symphonic Music
Dos motivos. For orchestra, 1984.
Tres canciones. For orchestra, 1987.
Balada. For orchestra, 1989.

Religious Music
Motete. 1981.
Misa. 1989.
Ave María. Mass for children's choir, 1992.

Choir and Orchestra
Che Comandante. 1982.
Tengo. 1983.
Los zapaticos de rosa. 1984.
Canción antigua a Che Guevera. 1984.
Juguete. 1985.
Che Guevera. 1985.
El pajarillo. 1985.
Noche de nanas. 1986.
Concierto Coral III. 1986.

Choirs and Small Instrumental Ensembles
Pequeño concierto. 1982.
Vierte corazón tu pena. 1984.
Concierto Coral II. 1984.
Cantantina. 1987.
Tres tiempos. 1987.
Cuatro canciones infantiles. 1988.
Matinee de Gabriela. 1988.

Solo Choir
Songs:
Palomita. 1979.
Concierto Coral I. 1984.
Cañaveral. 1985.
Si a mí me hubieran dicho. 1985.
Tríptico I. 1986.
Corazón coraza. 1986.
Lluvia. 1988.
Guantes azules. 1988.
Deseo. 1990.
Deshojación sagrada. 1990.
Cuando yo muera. 1990.
Si alguna vez tu pecho se detiene. 1990.
Aire nocturno. 1990.
El nuevo día. 1999.

Chamber Music
Suite para los pequeños. 1985.
Dos tiempos. 1987.
Preludio y guajira. 1988.
Canción mañanera. 1989.
Pieza. 1989.
Romanzas. 1989.
Pieza No. 2. 1990.

Solo Works
Preludio y guajira. 1987.
Dos piezas simples. 1987.
Preludio. 1990.

Discography
LD-EGREM:
Llueve cada mañana. 1989.
Vivir cantando. 1993.

DC-EGREM:
Penas. 2000.

DC-CARIBE PRODUCTIONS:
Señor de la alborada. 2000.

DC-UNICORNIO in collective:
Aire nocturno. 2002.

Beatriz is a defender of young people, of necessary continuity, and appeals, urges that the brave always join in, affirms that when the work of a creator is valid and strikes deep in others, there is no God that can paralyze it, it walks on its own, imposes itself, triumphs by itself.

She has said: I was young, I composed music with very few resources and I continue to do so, because I believe that true creation needs nothing more: an old piano, music paper, and a pen! Nothing more; and with the need to know oneself useful, as an essential duty, and the happiness of having achieved it. That is the creator I understand, who, moreover, does not age.