Francisco Savín
Mexican conductor and composer Francisco Savín Vázquez was born in Mexico City on 18 November 1929. In Mexico City he studied composition with Rodolfo Halffter and conducting with Hermann Scherchen. Later he studied composition and conducting in Prague. Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache was also a big influence on his orchestral conducting.
His conducting appointments included two periods with the Xalapa Symphony Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa) - from 1965 until 1967 and again towards the end of the twentieth century. Other appointments included Head of Music at the National Institute of Fine Arts (Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, INBA), Artistic Director of the National Symphony Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional) and Chair of Orchestral Conducting and head of the Symphony Orchestra at the National Conservatory of Music.
His compositions include the ten minute Quasar I for electronic organ and percussion of 1970.
Francisco Savín died in Mexico City on 26 January 2018, aged eighty-eight.