Modesta Boraus modern

Modesta Bor (* 15 June 1926 in Juan Griego, Isla Margarita; † 7 April 1998 in Mérida) was a Venezuelan composer.

Life

After her first music theory and piano lessons in her hometown, Bor attended the Escuela Superior de Música José Ángel Lamas from 1940. Here she studied theory and solfège with María de Lourdes Rotundo, piano with Elena Soriano de Arrarte, music history and aesthetics with Juan Bautista Plaza, harmony and orchestration with Antonio Estévez and counterpoint and composition with Vicente Emilio Sojo. Between 1948 and 1951, she worked at the Servicio de Investigaciones Folklóricas Nacionales, where she was head of the music department.

After her illness with Guillain-Barré syndrome ended her career as a pianist in 1951, Bor turned to composition. In 1953 she wrote the choral work Balada de la luna, luna, based on a text by Federico García Lorca, which was premiered by the Orfeon Lamas. For her Suite para Orquesta de Cámara, which was premiered by the Orquestra Sinfónica de Venezuela under Antonio Estévez at the Teatro Municipal de Caracas in 1959, she received the diploma as Maestro Compositor. She won the National Prize for Chamber Music in 1960 with the Sonata para viola y piano.

From 1960 to 1962, Bor studied at the Moscow Conservatory, where she was a composition student of Aram Khachaturian. In 1962 she received the National Prize for Vocal Music in Venezuela for her Segundo Ciclo de Romanzas for mezzo-soprano and piano. In 1962-63 she directed the children’s choir of the Universidad de Oriente in Lecherías.

After returning to Caracas, she again became director of the music department of the Servicio de Investigaciones Folklóricas Nacionales. From 1965 to 1979, she directed the children’s choir of the Juan Manuel Olivares Music School. During this time, she wrote a large part of her numerous choral arrangements of Venezuelan folk music.

In 1966, Bor founded the women’s sextet Arpegio, with whom she recorded two records of traditional Venezuelan children’s songs and folk music. From 1971 to 1973, she directed the Venezuelan Telephone Company Choir, with whom she recorded two more albums of Venezuelan music.

From 1973 to 1990, Bor was professor of composition at the José Lorenzo Llamozas School of Music. She was also head of the music department of the Dirección de Cultura of the Universidad Central de Venezuela from 1974 to 1989. In this capacity, she organised festivals and concerts and edited musical publications.

In 1990 she moved to Mérida. There she taught composition, harmony and choral conducting at the Centro Universario de Artes and later at the Universidad de los Andes and gave seminars on working with children’s choirs.

In addition to more than 200 choral works, Bor composed piano pieces, songs, chamber music and orchestral works as well as a cantata.

Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modesta_Bor