Antonio Lauro
| Antonio Lauro | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 3, 1917 Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela |
| Died | April 18, 1986 (aged 68) Caracas, Venezuela |
| Genres | Classical music, Venezuelan popular music |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, guitarist, composer, choir singer, music teacher |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Associated acts | Venezuela Symphony Orchestra |
Antonio Lauro (August 3, 1917 – April 18, 1986) was a Venezuelan musician, considered to be one of the foremost South American composers for the guitar in the 20th century.
Antonio Lauro was born in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela. His father Antonio Lauro Ventura, an Italian immigrant, was a barber who could sing and play the guitar so he taught his son what he could, but died when Antonio was still a child. After the family moved to Caracas, Lauro pursued formal musical study (piano, composition) at the Academia de Música y Declamación, where the composer Vicente Emilio Sojo (1887–1974) was one of his teachers. A 1932 concert performed in Caracas by Agustín Barrios, the Paraguayan guitarist and composer, so much impressed the young Lauro (already an accomplished folk guitarist) that he was persuaded to abandon piano and violin in favor of the guitar. From 1933, Lauro studied with Raúl Borges (1888–1967), and was introduced to the classical guitar repertoire. In the next decade, Borges' pupils would also include Rodrigo Riera, José Rafael Cisneros, and Alirio Díaz. These colleagues, especially Díaz, were later responsible for unveiling Lauro's works to an international audience, introducing these unheard works to, among others, Andrés Segovia, Leo Brouwer and John Williams.
Like many South Americans of his generation, Lauro was a fervent cultural nationalist, determined to rescue and celebrate his nation's musical heritage. As a member of the Trio Cantores del Trópico in 1935–1943 (Lauro sang bass and played both guitar and cuatro), he toured nearby countries to introduce them to Venezuelan music. Lauro was particularly attracted to the myriad colonial parlour valses venezolanos (Venezuelan waltzes) created in the previous century by accomplished national composers such as Ramón Delgado Palacios (1867–1902). Unfailingly melodic and characterized by a distinctive syncopation (created by a hemiola in which two measures of 3/4 become a single measure of 3/2), such music was precisely the sort of folkloric raw material which Smetana, Bartók or Granados had elevated to the category of national art in Europe.
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