Miguel Bernal Jiménez

Miguel Bernal Jiménez (16 February 1910 – 26 July 1956) was a Mexican composer, organist, pedagogist and musicologist.

He is widely regarded as the best representative of 20th century Mexican religious music, in addition to his important contributions to the Mexican nationalist music movement. He is considered by some to be the mainstay of the nacionalismo sacro (sacred nationalism) movement.

He was born in the city of Morelia in the Mexican state of Michoacán. He began his musical career at the age of seven as choir-boy in the Orfeón Pío X, studying in the Colegio de Infantes de la Catedral. His talent was discovered by his teachers Felipe Aguilera Ruiz and Ignacio Mier y Arriaga, who succeeded in getting him recommended and admitted in 1928 to the Instituto Pontificio de Música Sagrada (Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music) of Rome by the Canónigo José María Villaseñor. In this institution he was instructed in organ, counterpoint, fugue, paleographic musicology, composition, instrumentation, harmony and Gregorian chant, by his teachers Cesare Dobici, Raffaele Manari, Raffaele Casimiri, Paolo M. Ferretti, and Licinio Refice. He graduated two years later with the titles of Doctor in Gregorian chant, Master in composition, and organ concert performer.

In 1933, he returned to Mexico to be director of the Escuela Superior de Música Sagrada (Sacred Music High School) of Morelia, a position he held for twenty years. In Morelia he fought relentlessly to create schools, give concerts, courses and congresses. He published many books, sheet music, and specialized magazines, giving foremost importance to sacred music. In 1939, he founded the Schola Cantorum magazine, the first periodical to publish musicological, musical, and pedagogic material. It was one of the most important means of musical diffusion in his time.

...
Wikipedia