Leonardo Balada – A Transatlantic Gaze (Carnegie Mellon University Press Biography) - Softcover

De Dios, Juan Francisco; Bush, Peter; Balada, Leonardo; Arrabal, Fernando

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887486630 ISBN 13: 9780887486630

Publisher: Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2020

Synopsis

Leonardo Balada: A Transatlantic Gaze tells the story of how composer Leonardo Balada journeyed from a childhood and youth overshadowed by the violence of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath of "the years of hunger" to a new life as a budding composer in New York. Through meticulous historical research and hours of interviews conducted with Balada over six years, biographer Juan Francisco de Dios has produced a unique portrait of the making of an artist. His imaginative eye for detail recreates a sequence of fascinating episodes in social history. We meet adolescent Balada at school, the only boy in a class of girls, view his suffering as a military conscript in the mountains, witness behind-the-scenes conflicts and rivalries in the production of his opera in Barcelona, and get a glimpse of a more settled life when he became an educator of musicians-to-be at Carnegie Mellon University. Throughout, Francisco de Dios delivers riveting description of Balada's music and development as a composer. This biography is an essential contribution to the understanding of a musician who spans continents and the contemporary history and culture of Spain and the United States.

About this title

About the Author

Juan Francisco de Dios, born in Madrid, is a musicologist who teaches at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

Edition details

• Publisher: Carnegie-Mellon University Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0887486630
• ISBN 13: 9780887486630
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 328