Gerardo Guevara

Gerardo Guevara (born 23 September 1930) is one of the key composers in Ecuador.

His work combines native music with contemporary techniques.

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Born in Quito, Gerardo Guevara showed music ability at an early age.

Because his father worked as a caretaker at the Conservatorio Nacional, Guevara used to eavesdrop on the music dictations that were being given to older children and sometimes ventured to shout the answer before running away.

When he was fifteen he started studying composition with Luis H. Salgado.

In 1952, while playing the piano in an orchestra in Guayaquil, he studied composition and the analysis of Bartok's music with the Hungarian musician Jorge Aq

From 1959 onwards and thanks to a Unesco grant, Guevara studied composition with Nadia Boulanger at the École Normale de Musique de Paris where he graduated as a conductor.

While in Paris, he also studied musicology at the University of La Sorbonne.

After twelve years in France, he went back to Ecuador where in 1972 he formed the choir of the Central University of Quito.

A year later, he created the Sayce (Society for the protection of musicians).

He acted as a conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra from 1974–75 and director of the Conservatorio Nacional (1980–88) where he taught composition and the history of Ecuadorian Music.

Mainly nationalist he nonetheless explored contemporary techniques, which led Robert Stevenson to write: "Guevara Viteri has drawn on European styles".

More appropriately Béhague comments: "more advanced techniques of composition appeared in some of the works of Gerardo Guevara".

A prolific composer, he has also written essays and articles on music.

As a teacher he also had a profound influence on his students.