Accademia di musica heitor villa lobos biography

Heitor Villa-Lobos, (born March 5, 1887, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—died November 17, 1959, Rio de Janeiro), Brazilian composer and one of the foremost Latin American composers of the 20th century, whose music combines indigenous melodic and rhythmic elements with Western classical music.

Villa-Lobos’s father was a librarian and an amateur musician. Under the influence of his father’s weekly musical get-togethers, the boy became interested in music.

He learned to play cello (actually a modified viola) at age six and was inspired by music from Johann Sebastian Bach’s A Well-Tempered Clavier that was given to him by an aunt.

Accademia di musica heitor villa lobos biography

While traveling with his family to various regions of the vast country, he also developed an interest in native Brazilian folk music.

When they returned to Rio de Janeiro, Villa-Lobos began associating and performing with the city’s popular musicians.

He learned to play the guitar. He left home at age 18 because his widowed mother opposed his “