Leo Brouwer

Cuban-born composer, orchestral conductor, guitarist, researcher, pedagogue and cultural promoter, Leo Brouwer is one of the most recognized figures of our time. He is Commandeur des Arts et Lettres (France, 2018), honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (United States, 2019), honorary member of the CIM of UNESCO (France, 1987), the Italo-Latin American Institute, the Academy of Fine Arts of Granada, the Royal Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts of Córdoba, and full member of the Cuban Academy of Languages, among other prestigious institutions.

Has appeared as guest composer at The Akademie der Künste (Berlin Academy of Arts, DAAD, 1970), and beyond his compositional output, Brouwer has conducted more than one hundred and twenty symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles from around the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Scottish National Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Orchestra Nouvelle Philharmonic de Paris and the Symphonic Orchestra of Madrid. He has judged numerous international guitar, composition and orchestral conducting competitions. Since April 2005, he has served as president of the Leo Brouwer Office, based in Havana, and his own Ediciones Espiral Eterna publishing house. He was President of the International Guitar Competition and Festival of Havana (1982-2004) and General Director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba (1981-2003), Director of the Orchestra of Córdoba, Spain (1992-2001), and Artistic Director of the Carrefour Mondial de la Guitare (Martinique, 1976-2001).

Brouwer has more than three hundred international artistic and academic distinctions, among them; the “Manuel de Falla” Prize (Andalusia, Spain, 1998); the Doctor Honoris Causa Degree at the University of Hartford (USA), University of Santiago de Chile and the University of the Arts in Havana; the MIDEM Classical Awards (Cannes, 2003) for his Concerto de Helsinki for guitar and orchestra; the Pablo Neruda Order (Santiago de Chile, 2007), the Goffredo Petrassi Award for Composition (Zagarolo, 2008), the National Music Award in its first edition (Cuba, 1999); the National Film Prize (Cuba, 2009); the Tomás Luis de Victoria Ibero-American Music Prize (SGAE, Spain, 2010) and two Latin Grammy Awards (in 2010, for the complete string quartets and in 2017 with his work Sonata del Decamerón Negro No. 3 for guitar).

Brouwer’s artistic output speaks for itself with a discography of his music that exceeds 1.200 records and a catalog of more than 600 works that cover almost all genres and musical forms. In recent years he has composed works requested by several institutions as The Julian Bream Trust, Adelaide Guitar Festival, Changsha International Guitar Festival and Japan Guitar Ensemble Festival. He has composed and dedicated works to renowned musicians such as Julian Bream, John Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Edin Karamazov, Andreas Scholl, Egberto Gismonti, Ricardo Gallén, Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, Joao Luiz Rezende, Anne Akiko Meyers, Kaori Muraji, Thibault Cauvin, Grigoryan Brothers and Sheku Kanneh-Mason.