Cuban intellectual Jorge Garcíaporrúa dies

December 22, 2023

After several days hospitalized, Jorge Garciaporrúa, musician, advisor, director, playwright, pedagogue and composer, died on December 19, 2023, at 8:30 p.m. at Hospital Fajardo, at the age of 85.

Composer Jorge Garcíaporrúa Álvarez studied music at the "Amadeo Roldán," "Alejandro García Caturla" conservatories and at the National School of Art.

At these educational centers he had as composition professors the late José Ardévol and Leo Brouwer, while his graduation from the Superior Institute of Art was under the guidance of fellow composer Roberto Valera.

In the music of Jorge Garcíaporrúa, the use of different contemporary techniques and languages is frequent, such as: controlled aleatoric music, serialism, post-serialism and traditional techniques. He has also used African melodies and rhythms, brought to Cuba through the voices of enslaved people from those continents in past centuries. However, Garcíaporrúa himself expressed that he considers himself an impressionist composer, due to the importance he gives to color and dynamic variations.

Jorge Garcíaporrúa Álvarez was a professor of score reading in the Faculty of Music at the Superior Institute of Art of Cuba and has taught music in various centers. But one of his most notable activities has been his specialization in different theatrical genres that include opera, operetta and zarzuela, and in that capacity he has worked as an advisor to groups such as Teatro Estudio, the National Opera of Cuba and the National Lyric Theater.