One of the most ardent advocates of present-day Brazilian musical creation, José Antonio Resende de Almeida Prado was born in Santos, São Paulo, on February 8, 1943. He studied piano with Dinorah de Carvalho, harmony with Osvaldo Lacerda, and composition with Camargo Guarnieri. In 1969, he attained prestige throughout Brazil upon winning first place at the I Festival of Music of Guanabara with his cantata Pequenos Funerais Cantantes, based on a text by Hilda Hilst. At the time, it was performed at the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro with the theater’s choir and orchestra under the baton of Henrique Morelenbaum, and featured soloists Maria Lúcia Godoy and Eladio Perez Gonzáles. The international jury that awarded his piece included Guerra-Peixe, Roberto Schnorrenberg, and Ayres de Andrade from Brazil, Fernando Lopes Graça from Portugal, Franco Autori from the United States, Hector Tosar from Uruguay, Roque Cordero from Panama, Johannes Hoemberg from Germany, and Krzysztof Penderecki from Poland.
The prize was offered by the Secretariat of Education and Culture of the State of Guanabara and presented to him on stage by Secretary Gonzaga da Gama Filho. It allowed the young composer to do an internship in Europe for two years, which included a brief stay in Darmstadt to work with Gyorgy Ligeti and Lukas Foss, and a longer period in Fontainebleau and Paris, where he received the guidance of masters such as Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen. Without renouncing the valuable teachings of Camargo Guarnieri, the contacts with the music and ideas of the great champions of contemporary European music imparted new perspectives to the young Brazilian. With his horizons widened and his fertile creative imagination stimulated, he was led to construct his own strong musical personality, built on the pillars of strict formal discipline and technique and boundless musical fantasy. Extremely prolific, his catalogue of works is already one of the most consistent and abundant in today’s Brazilian musical creation, with ongoing references to ecology and religion.
His diversified production includes, among others, major works such as: Missa da Paz; Pequenos Funerais Cantantes; Trajetória da Independência, which won the Prize of the State of São Paulo; the oratory Therèse ou l’Amour de Dieu; Paixão segundo Marcos; Ritual para sexta-feira santa; the cantata Bendito da Paixão de Jesús de Nazaré; and the oratory Villegaignon ou Les Isles fortunées, which premiered in France. He has also composed a significant body of symphonic pieces such as: Symphony No. 1, which was awarded the Lili Boulanger Award; Arcos sonoros da catedral Anton Bruckner; Sinfonia dos Orixás;works for piano and orchestra such as Aurora, Exoflora, Concerto No. 1, and Variações Concertantes;works for violin and orchestra such as Fantasia, which was commissioned by the city of Rio de Janeiro to commemorate the visit of Pope John Paul II; and the symphony Oré Jacy-Tatá, inspired by the constellation in the Brazilian flag and commissioned by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture to commemorate the five hundred years of the discovery of Brazil. Both of these symphonies featured his daughter, violinist Constanza de Almeida Prado. For piano solo, he composed a series of Cartas Celestes (celestial letters),sonorous visions of the skies of Brazil, Rios (rivers), withan ecological inspiration, as well as sonatas, sonatinas, variations, and assorted pieces. In addition, he has composed several songs, choral pieces, chamber music, and work for other instruments. His work has been performed frequently with great success both in Brazil and abroad and has earned numerous awards.
Web: http://www.abmusica.org.br/site_abm_ingles/index.html (2010)