KEIKO ABE - JAPAN
BORN 18 APRIL
Keiko Abe is a Japanese composer and marimba player. She has been a primary figure in the development of the marimba, in terms of expanding both technique and repertoire, and through her collaboration with the Yamaha Corporation, developed the modern five-octave concert marimba.
Her compositions, including "Michi", "Variations on Japanese Children's Songs", and "Dream of the Cherry Blossoms", have become standards of the marimba repertoire. Abe is active in promoting the development of literature for the marimba, not only by writing pieces herself, but also by commissioning works by other composers and encouraging young composers. She has added at least 70 compositions to the repertoire. She uses improvisation as an important element in developing her musical ideas which she then uses in her compositions.
In addition to her heavy composing, touring, and recording schedule, Abe has been a lecturer, then professor, at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo since 1970. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 1993.Her music is mainly published by Xebec Music Publishing and Schott, Japan.
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MARCELA RODRÍGUEZ - MEXICO
BORN 18 APRIL
Marcela Rodríguez belongs to a generation of Mexican and Latin American composers which has distanced itself from the regionalism of the nationalistic music of the 20th century and is trying to get into touch with European and Anglo-American music without sacrificing its search for a Latin American musical identity
She studied the guitar and composition with Leo Brouwer of Cuba. She studied for a while in London, and then returned to Mexico City to study with Julio Estrada and Ma. Antonieta Lozano. Rodríguez works have been performed internationally, including the United States, Venezuela, Spain, her opera "Las Cartas de Frida" in Heidelberg, Germany, [Moldavia]] and Greece. She has taught classes of composition for opera, dance and theater in Mexico and Spain, and at the Catholic University of Colombia and the Catholic University of Washington.
Marcela Rodríguez has written works for solo instruments and voices as well as songs, chamber music, symphonies, concertos and operas. Since 1979 she has been writing music for dramas, too, and has worked together with the most eminent Mexican directors. Marcela Rodríguez is unusually well informed in the field of music and uses the resources of the European tradition as well as those of the Latin American one. She studied the guitar under two of its greatest interpreters - the Argentinean Manuel López Ramos and the most important modern composer for the guitar, the Cuban Leo Brouwer. Bothof them made Rodriguez aware of Latin American music and the problem of defining its identity. During a lengthy stay in London, where she completed a course of studying the guitar, she devoted her time mostly to the tradition of European music. Back in Mexico City she continued her studies under the music pedagogue Jesús Estrada and Mario Lavista, the most eminent living Mexican composer.
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Caida by Marcela Rodriguez
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