Composer, violist, and maestro Ernani Aguiar has studied violin and viola under Paulina d’Ambrósio and Santino Parpinelli, musical composition under César Guerra-Peixe, conducting under Carlos Alberto Pinto Fonseca, and chamber music under Jean-Jacques Pagnot. He was awarded a grant from the Mozarteum Argentino, where he studied with Sérgio Lorenzi. At the Cherubini Conservatory in Florence, Italy, he studied violin with Roberto Micchelucci, conducting with Annibale Gianuario, chamber music with Franco Rossi, and music history with Mário Fabbri.
He honed his craft of conducting with Franco Ferra, Adone Zecchi, Giuseppe Montanari, and Sergiu Celibidache. He was probably the first non-Italian in the last three centuries to conduct the Great Choir of the Cathedral of Florence, and he also received the title of “Chapel Master” at Santa Maria de Peretola in that city. He is a professor of conducting at the Villa-Lobos Institute at UNI-RIO, the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, and at the School of Music at UFRJ, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He was coordinator of the FUNARTE (National Foundation of Arts) Orchestras Project from 1982 to 1985. In 1990, he received the title of Benemeritous Citizen of the State of Rio de Janeiro. As a conductor, he has been a champion of principally Brazilian and contemporary international repertoires. As a research scholar, he has concentrated almost exclusively on Brazilian colonial music, and has produced critical editions of numerous musical works from that period. And, as a composer, he has been extremely successful. His music is frequently present on concert programs both in Brazil and abroad, and an impressive number of his works have been recorded.
Web: http://www.abmusica.org.br/site_abm_ingles/index.html (2012)