Escobar, Roberto

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Escobar, Roberto

Escobar, Roberto, Chilean composer and musicologist; b. Santiago, May 11, 1926. He studied at the Escuela Moderna de Música in Santiago and at the Manhattan School of Music in N.Y. In 1972 he was a senior Fulbright scholar at Columbia Univ., and in 1976–77 at the Univ. of Mo. From 1974 he held chairmanships at the Univ. of Chile in Santiago, where he became a Distinguished Prof, in 1981; he also was made a prof, extraordinary at the Catholic Univ. in Valparaiso that same year. He served as president of the Asociacion Nacional de Compositores (1974–77) and the Sociedad Chilena de Filosofía (1985–88). Among his books are Musicos sin pasado (Barcelona, 1971), Filosofía en Chile (Santiago, 1976), Teoria de Chileno (Santiago, 1981), and Creadores Musicales Chilenos (Santiago, 1997).

Works

ORCH 4 syms.:No. 1 (1962), No. 2 (1992), No. 3 (Santiago, Oct. 9, 1993), and No. 4 (1995); Tsunami (1993). CHAMBER : Cuarteto Estructural for String Quartet (1966); Ceremonia de Percusion, Mass for Percussion and Guitar (1974); Cuarteto Funcional for String Quartet (1979); The Tower of the Winds for String Quartet (1992); pieces for Solo Instruments. VOCAL: Laberinto for 4 Voices, 16 Instruments, and Percussion (1971).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire