Latin American Students at the Tanglewood Music Center
U.S. composer Aaron Copland was the Director of Composition at the Tanglewood Music Center nearly continuously from 1940-1965. His interest in Latin American musicians and U.S.-American musical relationships would foster the arrival of the first Latin American students at the fledgling Berkshire Music Center in 1941, the continued post-War attendance of Latin American students through the remainder of the 1940s, and Mexican composer Carlos Chávez’s position on the faculty in 1953.
In 1933, Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy removed U.S. military presence from Latin American countries and turned towards cultural diplomacy, which aimed to cement international relations through artistic exchange and promotion. One such agency established in 1940 was the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. Through Copland’s recommendation, this agency enabled the first Latin American students (five in total) to attend the Berkshire Music Center in 1941, including composer Blas Galindo. After the war, Copland continued to help obtain scholarships for Latin American composers to attend the Berkshire Music Center, including Alberto Ginastera, Pia Sebastiani (the first woman Latin American composition fellow), and Juan Orrego-Salas. Instrumentalists and conductors also continued to attend, including Aldo Parisot (cello), Jorge Mester (violin), Luis Biava (violin), and Eduardo Mata (conducting).
As government sources of sponsorship died down, other funding sources arose. In 1977, Saville Ryan established a scholarship fund in honor of her late fiancé, the Argentinian playwright Omar Del Carlo. Several musicians from Latin America, including composer Osvaldo Golijov (1990) attended Tanglewood on the Omar Del Carlo Tanglewood Fellowship. Other Latin American students of note (not sponsored by the Del Carlo scholarship) have included Tania León (1978), who co-curated the 2024 Festival of Contemporary Music, and Marcos Balter (2005), who will serve on the Tanglewood Music Center’s Composition Faculty in 2025.
Program of Latin American Chamber music on August 4, 1946, featuring the music of five Tanglewood Music Center Fellows
Roque Cordero (Panama), Juan Orrego-Salas (Chile), Héctor Tosar (Uruguay), Alberto Ginastera (Argentina), and Julián Orbón (Cuba) all studied conducting or composition at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1946.
The Copland Years: 1940s-1960s
Letter dated November 7, 1941 from Aaron Copland to Tanglewood Music Center administrator Margaret Grant during his trip as a goodwill ambassador to Latin America in the late summer/fall of 1941, under the auspices of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.
Letter dated April 14, 1942 from Aaron Copland to Tanglewood Music Center administrator Margaret Grant with comments about potential composition fellows for the 1942 session, including Latin American students Blas Galindo and José Pablo Moncayo.
Aaron Copland poses with a group of Latin American students at the home of former U.S. Ambassador Adolf Berle and his wife in Great Barrington, MA in 1946
Left to right, first row: Eleazar deCarvalho*, assistant conductor of the Rio de Janeiro orchestra (Brazil); Miss Merces Silva Telles, pianist and journalist, a week-end guest; Raúl Spivak, Argentine pianist; Juan Orrego-Salas, choral conductor from Santiago, Chile; second row: Mr. Berle, Mrs. Alberto Ginastera, Mrs. Estevez, Mrs. Spivak, Mrs. Orrego, Óscar Buenaventura y Buenaventura of Bogota, Columbia; standing: Dr. Alberto Carneiro, Brazilian delegate to United Nations Health Committee; Antonio Jose Estévez of Caracas, Venezuela; Mrs. Berle; Aaron Copland; Alberto Ginastera, composer from Buenos Aires, Argentina; Héctor Tosar, pianist and composer of Montevideo, Uruguay; Claudio Spies of Santiago, studying composition."
Copland and Ginastera stand in the far back in front of the bookcase.
Not pictured: Roque Cordero (Panama) and Julián Orbón (Cuba).
*Names in bold attended the Tanglewood Music Center as students in 1946.
Photograph by Howard S. Babbitt
A meeting of two continents: Latin American students pose with American composers on faculty at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1946
Left to right, top row: Lukas Foss, Héctor Tosar, Juan Orrego-Salas, and Irving Fine. Bottom row: Raúl Spivak, Antonio Jose Estévez, Leonard Bernstein, Julián Orbón, Óscar Buenaventura and Alberto Ginastera.
Photographer unknown
1947 TMC application of cellist Aldo Parisot (Brazil).
Parisot would serve for 60 years on the faculty at the Yale School of Music, from 1958 until six months before his death in 2018. Among Parisot's former pupils is the BSO's own Owen Young.
Aaron Copland stands with a group of international students on the Tanglewood lawn in 1947, pointing at Aldo Parisot (Brazil) who holds his cello.
Photograph by Howard S. Babbitt
Headshot of 1948 TMC composition student Pia Sebastiani (application here).
Sebastiani would later teach at Ball State University School of Music.
Photograph by Kitzler.
Application materials for the 1949 choral conducting student Nilda Muller (Uruguay), including a photograph from a concert advertisement.
Tanglewood Music Center application for the 1952 violin student Jorge (George) Mester, born in Mexico City.
He would return in 1955 to study conducting with Leonard Bernstein, the same year he made his conducting debut with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico.
Application materials for the 1956 violin student Luis Biava (Colombia).
Biava played for over 30 years with the Philadelphia Orchestra: as a section first violinist from 1968 to 1983, and then as principal second violinist from 1984 to 2000, with a one-year return to Colombia in 1983. He also served as a respected conductor-in-residence for the orchestra from 1994-2004.
Letter of recommendation from Mexican composer-conductor Carlos Chávez for the 1964 Tanglewood Music Center conducting student Eduardo Mata (Mexico).
Mata would go on to become the conductor of the Phoenix and Dallas Symphonies, and was named principal conductor of the New Zealand Symphony, although he died in a plane crash before he could assume the post.
Olga Koussevitzky (center, in all white) poses with a group of international students on the lawn at Seranak in 1964
Eduardo Mata, conductor from Mexico, is standing immediately behind Mrs. Koussevitzky to the left and wearing a bowtie.
"During my three weeks at Tanglewood, the daily experience of each of us being able to discuss our music with colleagues and to study the many problems confronted by serious music in our various countries, was a very rewarding aspect of this gathering of young Latin American musicians that summer of 1946."
Roque Cordero, class of 1946
Some Students Returned as Visiting Composers or Artists...
Aldo Parisot returned to Tanglewood in 1966 as a soloist in the Festival of Contemporary American Music.
Listen: Excerpt from Aldo Parisot performing David Martino's "Parisonatina al’Dodecafonia" at Tanglewood in 1966
"The experience of Tanglewood --first in 1946 as a student-- and then, in 1954 as a visiting composer....has been constantly present in my memories. The feelings of artistic richness and of human warmth, and the image of a friendly and peaceful landscape are often revived."
Juan Orrega-Salas, class of 1946
Carlos Chávez at Tanglewood: 1950s-1960s
Aaron Copland and Carlos Chávez. Photograph courtesy of Library of Congress
Copland met Chávez in 1926 during the latter’s second residency in New York City. They would maintain a friendship for over 50 years. Both composers wished to depart from European sounds to establish a national identity for their respective countries. Chávez first came to Tanglewood in 1953 where he joined Aaron Copland and Irving Fine on the composition faculty at the Berkshire Music Center. He appeared back on campus in 1964, where a photo captures him eating and talking with visiting conductor Seiji Ozawa and Aaron Copland.
Mexican composer-conductor Carlos Chávez
Chávez was on the composition faculty at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1953 and returned occasionally as a guest.
Photographer unknown
Brochure advertising the 1953 Tanglewood Music Center session, featuring Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland and Carlos Chávez on the faculty
Composer Carlos Chávez and Leonard Bernstein chat backstage at the Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood
Leonard Bernstein and Carlos Chávez both spent the summer of 1953 on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center. On August 15, 1953, Leonard Bernstein conducted the BSO in a performance of Chávez' Sinfonia India.
Program book for the August 15th, 1953 Boston Symphony Orchestra performance of Carlos Chávez's Sinfonia India during the summer he taught on the faculty at the Tanglewood Music Center.
The orchestra was conducted by Leonard Bernstein, another Tanglewood Music Center faculty member as well as an alumnus.
Visiting conductor Seiji Ozawa, Aaron Copland, and Carlos Chávez share a meal and conversation at Tanglewood in the summer of 1964.
Photograph by Heinz Weissenstein (Whitestone Photo)
Listen: Excerpt from Carlos Chávez conducting the BSO in his Sinfonía India at Symphony Hall on April 3, 1959
Highlights: just a few of the Latin American students from post-1960s
Tania León (Cuba) with Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood, ca. 1978.
The Cuban composer attended a Conducting Seminar at Tanglewood in 1978. In 2024, she co-curated the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood.
Photograph by Heinz Weissenstein (Whitestone Photo)
Saville Ryan (center) and six Omar Del Carlo Fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center: Roberto Díaz (TMC '81, viola-Chile); Josefina Vargara ('90, violin-Chile); Andrés Díaz ('82, '83, '86, cello-Chile); Flavio Chamis ('90, conductor-Brazil); Washington Barella ('90, oboe- Brazil); and Osvaldo Golijov ('90, composer-Argentina).
Saville Ryan established a scholarship fund in honor of her late fiancé, the Argentine playwright Omar Del Carlo, who died in 1975. Several musicians from Latin America, including composer Osvaldo Golijov (on far right), have attended Tanglewood on the Omar Del Carlo Tanglewood Fellowship.
Photographer unknown
Michael Gandolfi (left) talks with TMC Composition Fellows Roger Feria, Jr. (center) and Marcos Balter (from Brazil, on right) during the TMC Luncheon on July 16, 2005.
Photograph by Michael Lutch