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(b Dairen, China, Dec 12, 1929). Japanese jazz composer, pianist and bandleader. She studied classical music and turned to jazz only in 1947 after moving to Japan. There she was discovered by Oscar Peterson, who urged her to take up a career in the USA. After studying at Berklee College of Music (1956–9) she became a highly regarded bop pianist, especially in groups with the alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano (who was at that time her husband). She worked in Japan (1961), joined Charles Mingus in the USA (1962–3), then returned to Japan until 1965. In 1973 she founded a large rehearsal band in Los Angeles with the tenor saxophonist and flautist Lew Tabackin, whom she had married in 1969. Its first album, Kogun (1974, RCA), was commercially successful in Japan, and the group attracted increasing popularity and critical acclaim until, by ...

(b Manila, May 15, 1909; d Manila, August 11, 1991). Filipino composer, conductor and pianist. In 1930 he graduated from the Conservatory of the University of the Philippines with teacher’s diplomas in piano and in theory and composition; he then studied at the Chicago Musical College (BMus 1932, MMus 1933) and the Neotarian College of Philosophy, Kansas City (PhD 1947). He taught at the University of the Philippines Conservatory (1930–34) and was director and professor at the Manila (1934–9, 1949–52) and Cosmopolitan College (1948–9) conservatories. During World War II he appeared as a pianist and conductor in the USA, Canada, Europe and Hawaii. He was a state cultural adviser (1958–60) and founder-president of the National Federation of Music. He lectured in humanities at the University of the City of Manila (1968–75), and after 1978 worked mainly in the USA, appearing as a composer-conductor at the Seattle Opera House....

(Feliciano)

(b Manila, May 20, 1911). Filipino composer, conductor and pianist. After a four-year scholarship under Alexander Lippay, he graduated from the Conservatory of the University of the Philippines in 1930 and then taught theory and the piano at the same institution, continuing his composition and conducting studies there with Lippay, Jenő Takács and Herbert Zipper. In 1959 he took the MA at the University of Santo Tomas and travelled to the USA on a Smith-Mundt grant. He was director of the University of Santo Tomas Conservatory (1958–61), associate conductor of the Manila SO for several years, dean of the Yamaha School of Music, and a member of the executive board of the National Music Council of the Philippines. Most of his compositions, written in a late-Romantic style, were burnt during World War II; notable among his works were the Malayan Suite for orchestra (1932), piano solos such as ...

(b Feb 9, 1942). Turkish composer, conductor and violinist. He studied the violin at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory, with Ekrem Zeki Ün, and at the Ankara State Conservatory. His early instrumental works draw on Turkish traditional music, while his later compositions display a more eclectic range of influences. With colourful orchestration, Demiriş combines a characteristically Turkish harmonic style with atonality, polymodality and the modal scales of Turkish traditional music in his three operas. Islamic mysticism and Turkish military music are major sources of inspiration. The librettos of his operas are from legendary subjects: Karyağdı Hatun, for example, is about a pregnant holy woman who craves snow in summer so makes it snow. His works are often performed by state institutions in Turkey with his wife, the soprano Leyla Demiriş, in the leading role. Demiriş has an honorary doctorate from Bosphorus University.

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(b Jakarta, 1952). Indonesian composer, conductor and pianist. After early piano lessons he entered the YPM music school at the age of nine, then studied composition and the piano with Sutarno Sutikno and Frans Haryadi at the Jakarta Institute of the Arts. In 1972 and 1974 Djamin won the Electone Festival championship. He lived in the USA between 1974 and 1988, initially studying composition and the piano at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and also studying conducting. In 1988 he obtained the doctorate in piano performance from the Catholic University of America. His American awards include the Otto Ortman Award for composition (1975, 1976) and the Peabody Concerto Competition for piano performance. In Indonesia Djamin has been active as a composer, conductor and pianist. He established the highly regarded Nusantara Chamber Orchestra in 1988; in 1994 he became composer-in-residence and supervisor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Malaysia....

[Federico]

(b Manila, Dec 12, 1907; d Manila, Jan 16, 1979). Filipino bandleader, pianist, conductor and composer of Spanish parentage. He studied at the Madrid Conservatory, with, among others, Trago and Perez Casas. In 1921 he went to England for two years' study at St Joseph's College, London, and later entered Stanford University, California, where his parents intended him to study law. However, under the influence of Bloch, with whom he had composition lessons, he left in 1926 to give his attention to music. At this point his fascination for jazz and dance music began, and he led the Stanford University Band for a season at the Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles, while continuing formal composition studies. After cutting his first discs with his Cinderella Roof Orchestra in Hollywood, he returned to England to read law at Cambridge University (where his brother, the saxophonist Manuel (Lizz) Elizalde, was also a student) in ...

(b Istanbul, March 14, 1906; d Ankara, Sept 15, 1972). Turkish composer, pianist and conductor. In 1925 he won a competition enabling him to study at the Paris Conservatoire and at the Ecole Normale de Musique, where he took composition and piano classes with Jean and Noël Gallon and Nadia Boulanger. Returning to Turkey in 1930, he became a lecturer at the Ankara School for Music Teachers. In 1949 he was appointed director at the Ankara State Conservatory, where he had taught the piano for some time. In 1951 he became head of the piano department of Ankara State Conservatory, but continued to compose and conduct concerts in Turkey and elsewhere. One of the Turkish Five, Erkin made skilful use of traditional Turkish music, particularly its rhythm. His compositions at first reflected the influence of Impressionism, but as he matured Erkin displayed a colourful, more individual expression coupled with rich and varied orchestration. (...

[Heinrich]

(b Königsberg [now Kaliningrad, Russia], March 2, 1909; d Tel-Aviv, Dec 13, 1990). Israeli composer, conductor and string player . He studied the viola and composition with Hindemith at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (1927–30). From 1930 to 1933 he played in the Grosses Orchester des Südwestdeutschen Rundfunks. With the rise of the Nazis, he left Germany and, after a year's sojourn in Istanbul, emigrated to Palestine. In 1934 he settled in Jerusalem where he joined the Palestine Music Conservatory (1934–47) and the Jerusalem String Quartet (1934–9), both of which were founded two years earlier by the violinist Emil Hauser of the Budapest String Quartet. He was appointed to the Jerusalem New Conservatory and Academy of Music in 1947 (assistant director, 1949–54; director, 1954–8). He later moved to Tel-Aviv, where he played the viola in the Israel PO until 1974. During 1974–5...

(b Jerusalem, Oct 5, 1904; d Istanbul, Oct 7, 1985. Turkish composer, conductor and pianist. A child prodigy, he went to Paris at the age of nine as a pupil of Marguerite Long. After a period in Switzerland at the Geneva Conservatory, he continued his studies in Paris with Raoul Laparra, Fauré and Henri Derosse (conducting). Returning to Turkey in 1923, he began teaching at the Istanbul Conservatory, where in 1934 he founded the conservatory orchestra. In 1938 he became the music programme director of Radio Ankara, in 1945 conductor of the Istanbul City Orchestra and from 1949 to 1950 music programme director of Radio Istanbul. Between 1949 and 1960 he also undertook concert tours abroad. After retiring from official positions, he continued to teach privately and to compose. Rey’s style and expression show the influence both of Impressionism and traditional Turkish music. One of the most productive members of the Turkish Five, he has produced works of almost every type, including musicals (mostly to librettos by his brother, Ekrem Reşit Rey) and music for plays and films....

(b Iaşi, April 17, 1929; d Jerusalem, 9 May, 2009). Romanian-born Israeli conductor, composer, and violinist. He studied the violin (with Garabet Avakian) and conducting (with Constantin Silvestri) at the Bucharest Academy of Music (1945–7). In 1957 Rodan pursued advanced studies in conducting and chamber music at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. He made his début with the Romanian RSO in 1953. In 1961 he moved to Israel and conducted the Israel PO, becoming chief conductor and music adviser to the Israel Broadcasting SO (1963–72). As a conductor he preferred post-Romantic and less extreme contemporary music. In 1965 he founded the Jerusalem Chamber Orchestra and, as its permanent conductor until 1969, toured with it to Europe, East Asia, Australia, South Africa, and the USA. Rodan appeared as a guest with various European orchestras and frequently conducted at the Israel and Arthur Rubinstein festivals, with such soloists as Rubinstein himself, Barenboim, Rampal, Perlman, and du Pré. In ...

[Kar’el]

(b Heidelberg, Nov 13, 1897; d Jerusalem, Jan 15, 1974). Israeli composer, conductor, singer and keyboard player of German birth. He studied the organ with Philipp Wofrum and composition with Richard Strauss. From 1920 to 1926 he held the position of conductor at the Hamburg Neues Stadt-Theater, and from 1931 to 1932 was baritone and stage director at the Deutsche Musikbühne. He emigrated to Palestine in 1933, where he was appointed programme director of the newly founded Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS, later Kol Israel [‘The Voice of Israel’]), a position he held until his retirement in 1962; he founded the PBS Orchestra (later the Kol Israel Orchestra) in 1938.

Many of Salomon’s early works were destroyed. His music from 1933 is tonal with modal inflections, combining European traditions with folk influences to create a light, accessible style. The Sepharadic Suite (1961) incorporates Spanish melodies; popular material is also used in the Second Symphony ‘Leilot be’Cna’an (‘Nights of Canaan’, ...

(b Santa Maria, Bulacan, Jan 29, 1889; d Manila, Sept 28, 1947). Filipino composer, conductor and pianist. Showing precocious musical talent, he was taken to Manila at the age of ten to train at the Colegio de Tiples of the Cathedral. He studied the piano with Echegoyen, Villacorta and Calzada, and then entered the S Juan de Letran College and later the University of the Philippines Conservatory, where he took teacher’s diplomas in the piano (1921) and composition (1922). For a while he taught at the university and composed: he had written his first song in the kundiman genre, Ako’y anak ng dalita (‘I’m a Poor Child’), in 1917, and he produced the harmonizations for Filipino Folk Songs (Manila, 1921, 2/1950), a collection made by Emilia S. Cavan. Santiago then continued his education in Chicago at the American Conservatory (MMus 1924) and the Musical College (DMus ...

(b Prague, Aug 6, 1908; d Tel-Aviv, Sept 30, 1980). Israeli conductor, composer and pianist of Czech birth. At the Prague Music Academy (1924–6) he studied the piano with Franz Langer and Ervin Schulhoff, and composition with Zemlinsky, winning a piano competition there in 1925. His début as an opera conductor was in 1926 at the Neues Deutsches Theater, Prague, with Kienzl’s Der Evangelimann. He conducted there until 1930, when he went to Hamburg to conduct the Staatsoper. In 1934 he returned to Prague, where he gave the first radio performance of the concert version of Dvořák’s first opera, Alfred. In 1939 he settled in Palestine and in December that year he first conducted the Palestine SO; he later became permanent guest conductor of this orchestra, and also of the Israel Broadcasting SO, the Israel Chamber Orchestra and the Haifa SO. He was among the founders in ...

[Li Tai-hsiung]

(b Malan, Taidong, Feb 20, 1941). Taiwanese composer, violinist and conductor. Born among the indigenous Amei people, he grew up in Taipei, studying the violin at the National Institute of the Arts (1954–62). After graduation he led the Taipei SO. In 1964 he spent some time teaching among the Amei. He took an active part in the burgeoning of contemporary music in the late 1960s, when many of his early compositions were performed. In 1973 he received a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship to the Center for Experimental Music at the University of California at San Diego. During music festivals which he organized in cooperation with the composer Xu Boyun and the choreographer Lin Huaimin, he introduced the prepared piano, electronic music, the laser and other multi-media stage effects to Taiwanese audiences. At the annual festival of his works which he organized between 1978 and 1983, Chuantong yu zhanwang...

[jr]

(b St Louis, July 16, 1925; d Manila, Philippines, May 5, 1982). American vibraphone player, percussionist, bandleader, composer and arranger of Swedish descent. Based in San Francisco’s Bay Area throughout his career, he began as a jazz player, playing the drums with the Dave Brubeck Trio (1949–51). In 1953 he joined George Shearing’s jazz quintet as a vibraphone player and percussionist, and the following year left to form his own jazz ensemble with such players as pianist Vince Guaraldi. His virtuosity and infallible sense of phrasing marked him as the greatest jazz vibraphone player since Lionel Hampton. He turned to Latin jazz in the late 1950s, working with percussionists such as Mongo Santamaría, Armando Peraza and Willie Bobo. Tjader became the most famous non-Latino Latin jazz musician and bandleader of the 1950s and 60s, with such hits as Soul Sauce and Mamblues in addition to memorable versions of Dizzy Gillespie’s ...

(b Istanbul, Nov 23, 1910; d Dublin, March 24, 1987). Turkish composer, violinist and conductor. He studied the violin with Line Talluel, Marcel Chailley and Jacques Thibaud and harmony with L. Laurant and Alexandre Cellier at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris; he also took composition lessons from Dandelot. His compositional style evolved throughout his career. His impressionistic early compositions reflect his education in Paris; later he was influenced by the philosophy of Henri Bergson and began to incorporate the melodic and rhythmic modal systems of Turkish traditional music. While Ün considered his works written after 1965 to be images of Eastern mysticism, his earlier compositions often cultivated national themes, as in his symphonic poem Yurdum (‘My Country’). Ün also wrote several books on music education in Turkey.

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