Alberto Guerrero
| Alberto Guerrero | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Antonio Alberto García Guerrero |
| Born |
February 6, 1886 La Serena, Chile |
| Died | December 7, 1959 (aged 73) |
Antonio Alberto García Guerrero (February 6, 1886 – November 7, 1959) was a Chilean-Canadian composer, pianist, and teacher. While he is most famously remembered as the mentor of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, Guerrero influenced several generations of musicians through his many years of teaching at the Toronto Conservatory of Music.
Born in La Serena, Chile, Guerrero first studied piano with his mother and older brother Daniel; he was otherwise self-taught. After the family moved to Santiago in the early 1890s, he became part of a group of artists and intellectuals who called themselves Los Diez. As a resourceful composer and talented concert pianist, Guerrero would have a reform-minded influence on Chilean musical life. His brother Eduardo became a music critic and Alberto contributed articles and reviews to the newspaper El diario ilustrado. He published a treatise in 1915 entitled La armonia moderna (now lost).
Guerrero introduced Chilean audiences to the modern music of his day, including works by Debussy, Ravel, Cyril Scott, Scriabin, and Schoenberg. He founded and conducted Santiago’s first symphony orchestra and was active in founding the Sociedad Bach in 1917.
In 1918, during a honeymoon trip to New York City, Guerrero came in contact with members of the Hambourg family, who invited him to teach at the recently established Hambourg Conservatory in Toronto. Guerrero accepted this position and emigrated to Canada with his wife and daughter the following year.
In Toronto, Guerrero performed for a few years with the Hambourg Trio (having replaced pianist Mark Hambourg). While he shifted his focus to piano technique and pedagogy, he expanded his performing repertory to include works from Purcell through Les Six. As one of Canada’s most active pianists, he played regular radio recitals (a highly innovative move at the time) beginning in the mid-1920s and through to the early 1950s. He also initiated a subscription series of solo recitals from 1932-1937. Each season’s four or five recitals would cover often neglected works by Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, 18th-century Spanish composers, 20th-century French composers, and Stravinsky. Bach pieces included the complete inventions and sinfonias as well as the Goldberg Variations, all of which would be later popularized by his pupil Glenn Gould. Guerrero performed in various chamber ensembles with musicians such as with Frank Blachford (violin), Leo Smith (cello), Harold Sumberg (violin), and Cornelius Ysselstyn (cello). For over a decade, he was also a member of the Five Piano Ensemble.
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