Paul Desenne

Paul Desenne was one of modern Venezuela's most prominent composers. Also active as a cellist, he incorporated Latin American rhythms and instruments into his work. Desenne was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on December 7, 1959. Desenne and some friends formed a band modeled on British pop groups, but when he was 14, he began composing music for it and performing around the Caracas area. Desenne began studying composition with Iannis Ioannides at the Venezuelan Institute of Culture and Fine Arts. In 1976, he traveled to Paris (he had studied in French schools in Caracas) and took up cello studies there, enrolling in 1981 at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSDP) and winning the school's first prize in cello performance. He also performed with tango and Andean music groups. Desenne remained active as a composer, and he began to consider ways of incorporating traditional South American sounds into his music; among his early compositions was the Quinteto del pájaro for flute, oboe, violin, cello, and cuatro (1981). The cuatro is a small, four-stringed guitar characteristic of Venezuela, and he would go on to use it in various compositions. Back in Venezuela, Desenne joined the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and later served as resident composer for the country's acclaimed national music education system, El Sistema. Desenne wrote five symphonies and other orchestral works; his larger compositions have often been programmed by conductor Gustavo Dudamel with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His compositional output accelerated after 2002 when he took a hiatus from performing and teaching in order to devote full time to composition. His output also includes chamber music and keyboard works. Desenne's music has been performed at major U.S. venues such as Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, in addition to Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles. Desenne earned a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009, and in the 2011-2012 academic year, he was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. As conditions in his Venezuelan homeland deteriorated, Desenne settled with his family in Waltham, Massachusetts, outside Boston, and continued to compose; his orchestral work Hipnosis mariposa was conducted at the 2016 BBC Proms by Dudamel. Desenne died suddenly from a heart attack in Boston on May 20, 2023.
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