Marlos Nobre
Brazilian composer, conductor and pianist Marlos Nobre came from Recife. He was born on 18 February 1939. He studied at his local music conservatory (Pernambuco) and his composition teachers were Camargo Guarnieri and H J Koellreutter. A Rockefeller Foundation scholarship allowed him to study in Buenos Aires, where fellow students included Alberto Ginastera, Olivier Messiaen, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Aaron Copland and Luigi Dallapiccola. Later he was able to work with Alexander Goehr and Gunther Schuller in Tanglewood, meeting Leonard Bernstein, and to study electronic music in New York.
He won a series of composers' competitions, mostly in the 1960s and 70s.
His eclectic compositions drew on the north-east Brazilian 'desafio' tradition of musical duelling between two singers. His style was influenced by Brazilian traditional and popular music, and used techniques such as atonality, polytonality and serialism.
His many appointments, mostly in the Americas, also included a period as composer-in-residence at the Brahms-Haus in Baden-Baden, Germany and invitations to conduct orchestras in Europe. He held the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1985-6.
He received many commissions, including from the Apollon Foundation (Germany), Maracaibo Music Festival (Venezuela), the Neuchâtel Chamber Orchestra (Switzerland) and the Spanish Ministry of Culture.
Marlos Nobre (1939-2024)
As a pianist and conductor he performed in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, France, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, UK, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Later in his life his positions included the presidency of Jeunesses Musicales (Brazil), and Musica Nova Editions (Brazil). He was also director of contemporary music programming at Brazil's classical music and cultural Rádio MEC-FM.
Marlos Nobre died in Rio de Janeiro on 2 December 2024, aged eighty-five.
A selection of articles about Marlos Nobre
Classical music news - December 2024 Obituaries - Our summary of those the classical music world has lost this month
Echoes of Oblivion by Robert McCarney - Turn that racket down!
Record Box. Innocent Mischief - Eduardo Monteiro plays piano music from Brazil, reviewed by Bill Newman