Luis Szarán

Infobox Artist
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name = Luis Szarán


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birthname = Luis Szarán
birthdate = September 24th, 1953
location = Encarnación, Paraguay
deathdate =
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nationality = Paraguayan
field = Musician
training =
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works = "Meditación por la caída del Muro de Berlin para violín o violoncello y cuerdas"
"Preludio Sinfónico"
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influenced by =
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awards = Honored by the Italian government with the title of Official Knight of the Republic

Luis Szarán is a Paraguayan musician, orchestra director, composer and musical researcher. He has directed symphonic and chamber orchestras in America and Europe. He is director of the Asunción City Symphonic Orchestra (OSCA, for its name in Spanish Orquesta Sinfónica de la Ciudad de Asunción) and the Phylomusica Orchestra of Asunción.

He has also directed plays of his own in numerous international festivals and has obtained the National Award of Music, given by the National Parliament in 1997.

Childhood and Youth

Luis Szarán was born in Encarnación, Itapúa, in Paraguay on September 24, 1953.

He studied music with the teacher José Luis Miranda in Asunción.

In 1975 he obtained a scholarship to master his studies, given by the Italian government. He studied orchestra direction in the Santa Cecilia Conservatory, in Rome. His teachers were Massimo Pradela, Piero Bellugi and Mario Migliardi.

Later on, he took courses of improvement in the Colón Theater, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with teacher Hans Swarowsky.

In 1977 he continued his education in Chigiana de Sierra Academy and the Instituto Francesco Canneti de Vicenza.

Career

Luis has dedicated to musical research. The results of his work have been published in many books in Paraguay, Chile, Spain, Italy and United States. Some of his outstanding work is about Native-American music and Paraguayan popular music; also transcriptions of the music in the Jesuit Missions.

Since 1989, he is director of the Paraguayan Area for the Spanish Hispanic-American Encyclopedic Dictionary of Music, organized by the Author General Society of Spain.

His brilliant compositions have been presented in many international festivals, such as Festival de Música Contemporánea de Ouro Preto in Brazil, in 1975 and 1978; Encuentro de Compositores de Latinoamérica in Santiago, Chile 1988 and 1989, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in 1989, and in Buenos Aires in 1990.

His piece “Variaciones en Puntas” for winds quintet was presented in the Youth International Festival of Beyreuth, Germany during the closing concert. This festival was organized for the Centennial of Franz Liszt in 1986. It was also presented in the Sao Paulo’s Musica Nova Festival, among others.

Work

Numerous orchestras in many countries of the world played his most outstanding compositions. Some of them were:

* Symphonic Orchestra of Berlin
* Philharmonic Orchestra of Venezuela
* Symphonic Orchestra of Paris
* Strings Orchestra of Torino’s Philharmonic
* Wind Band of the Bayreuth’s Youth International Festival
* National Chamber Orchestra of Uruguay
* Orchestra of the Anacrusa Festival of Santiago de Chile
* Symphonic Orchestra of Tucumán

In addition, many solo artists have performed his compositions, such as: Eduardo Fernández (guitar), Götz Bernau (violin), Vihn Pham (violin), Nicholas Ktichen (violin), Daniel Luzko and José Luis Miranda (piano), Mami Sakuda Fiorentini (soprano), Antonio Dourthe (bass), Eladio Pérez González (baritone).

:

ounds of my Land

Without a doubt, the project “Sonidos de mi tierra” (Sounds from my land), is the most important and elaborated communitarian project about musical culture in Paraguayan history. The project is being emulated nowadays in other countries in America.

The project is directed towards the kids and young people, and was created by Luis Szarán himself, who through the music schools, bands and cultural associations, gives access to musical education to 3.000 people of scarce resources, in 72 communities in the interior of the country.

The program is inspired in the concept of “education for the art”; it was initiated in 2002 with the support of the AVINA Foundation, expanding it with alliances with other organizations like; the National Parliament, FONDEC, ITAIPU Bi-National, Asuncion’s Philharmonic Society, the Embassies of Germany, United States, France and Italy, Partners of the Americans (Paraguay-Kansas), Culture Direction of Asunción Municipality and others. More than 100 organizations, municipalities, business and sponsors are involved.

In 2005, Luis Szarán was awarded with the Skoll Awards for The Social Entrepreneurships, given by the Skoll Foundation of California (USA). This award made possible to expand the project to other sector of society in need. The same year Sounds from my land is included as a program of Fundación Tierranuestra.

Awards

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References

* [http://www.luisszaran.org/index.php?lang=en Sitio Oficial]
* Diccionario de la Musica en el Paraguay(Luis Szarán)
* EVP - Wikipedia
* [http://www.evp.edu.py/index.php?title=Portada Enciclopedia Virtual Paraguaya - Portal]