Héctor Angulo

Composer. A characteristic of his works is that he links the use of new composition techniques with elements of Cuban folklore. For years he was musical advisor to the Teatro de Guiñol de La Habana.

He began his music studies in his native city, continued them at the Conservatorio Municipal de Música de La Habana, and completed them at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Subsequently he studied harmony with Leo Brouwer.

Regarding the influences he has received from the point of view of composition, Angulo says: "I am a continuator of the aesthetic of Alejandro García Caturla as far as his creative work based on the presence of Cuban elements in the rhythmic, timbral, melodic and formal aspects [...]".

Around the 1960s, a notable imprint of Hungarian composer Béla Bártok becomes evident in Angulo's work, perceptible in String Quartet No. 2; also of Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos, appreciable in the treatment of melody in Evocation; composers from Venezuela, Peru, Mexico and other countries of our continent have left their mark on the work of this creator, "which fuse together, by way of synthesis, with what they find in common with the Cuban."

Amadeo Roldán is another composer to whom Angulo owes some element; in Toque, for piano and Cuban percussion, he draws from his way of working, because, "without intending to, he created a genre (the toque) very far from the ritual, with characteristics of the toccata, but in its place".

However, Angulo's vocal music production takes another path, since "it moves within the realm of romanticism and literary modernism of the past century, hence the texts he chooses although the harmonic style of his music does not respond to romantic canons, but the character that he captures in each of his songs approaches the lyrical atmosphere of the nineteenth century [...]". The valuable vocal production of this composer places him as a true master in this line of creation.

On the other hand, the composer has enriched his artistic life, nourished his inner world, with the work of transcribing two hundred fifty melodies collected by folklorist Rogelio Martínez Furé; inspired by those materials he wrote his triptych Afro-Cuban Songs.

Elements of African cultures present in Cuba have likewise served as a basis for Angulo for other compositions, such as his Five African Poems, and his Yoruba Songs of Cuba, for solo guitar; in this vein stands out the chamber opera Ibeyi Añá, based on the story "The Roads of Cuba Open and Close", collected by Lydia Cabrera in Black Stories of Cuba. About this work the composer has said: "Ibeyi Añá means 'The Obeyis and the Drum'. The music uses pure folklore and is elaborated with serial technique.

It is orchestrated for solo voice, chorus and chamber ensemble." Héctor Angulo uses, without losing his creative personality, elements of contemporary music and folklore, thereby achieving a true synthesis. He also wrote twenty-two street cries "in the style of those hawked through the streets by vendors of the eighteenth century, for the lively Papobo, produced in the film studios of Cuban Television".

For General Song, the composer selected five stanzas from the homonymous work by Pablo Neruda; the structure of this piece is determined by the expressive force of the texts, alternating, on that basis, recitation and song. The piano, with various resources of contemporary technique, supports or comments on what is sung or declaimed. Angulo has created numerous works for the theater.