Uribe-Holguín, Guillermo

Uribe-Holguín, Guillermo, eminent Colombian composer and pedagogue; b. Bogotá, March 17, 1880; d. there, June 26, 1971. He studied violin with Figueroa at the Bogotá Academy of Music (1890) and with Narciso Garay; taught at the Academy (1905-07). In 1907 he went to Paris, where he studied with d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum, and then took violin lessons with César Thomson and Emile Chaumont in Brussels. He returned to Colombia in 1910 and became director of the newly reorganized National Cons, in Bogotá; resigned in 1935 and devoted his time to the family coffee plantation. He continued to compose and was active as a conductor; was again director of the Cons, from 1942 to 1947. In 1910 he married the pianist Lucia Gutiérrez. His music bears the imprint of the modern French style, but his thematic material is related to native musical resources; particularly remarkable are his Trozos en el sentimiento popularfor Piano, of which he wrote about 350; they are stylizations of Colombian melorhythms in a brilliant pianistic setting. He publ. an autobiography, Vida de un músico colombiano (Bogotá, 1941).

Works

dramatic: Opera: Furatena. ORCH : (all 1^stperf. in Bogotá): llsyms. (1910-50); Sinfonia del terruño (Oct. 20,1924); 3 danzas (May 27,1927); Marcha festiva (Aug. 20, 1928); Serenata (Oct. 29, 1928); Carnavalesca (July 8, 1929); Cantares (Sept. 2,1929); Villanesca (Sept. 1,1930); Bajo su ventana (Oct. 20,1930); Suite típica (Nov. 21, 1932); Concierto a la manera antiguafor Piano and Orch. (Oct. 15, 1939); Bochica (April 12, 1940); Conquistadores (April 3, 1959); 2 violin concertos; Viola Concerto. CHAMBER : 10 string quartets; 2 piano trios; 7 violin sonatas; Cello Sonata; Viola Sonata; Piano Quartet; 2 piano quintets. VOCAL : Choruses; song cycles.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire