Brazilian Academy of Music
Academia Brasileira de Música | |
| File:Simbolo da Academia Brasileira de Música.png Official symbol | |
| Abbreviation | ABM |
|---|---|
| Formation | 14 July 1945 |
| Founder | Heitor Villa-Lobos |
| Type | Nonprofit cultural association[1] |
| Headquarters | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
Official language | Portuguese |
President | Ilza Nogueira[2] |
| Website | abmusica |
The Brazilian Academy of Music (Script error: The function "langx" does not exist.; ABM) is a Brazilian nonprofit cultural institution founded on 14 July 1945 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. It is composed of forty members, drawn from Brazilian musical life in the fields of musical composition, performance, conducting, music education and musicology.[3][4]
Villa-Lobos created the academy as a permanent forum for Brazilian concert music, with numbered chairs, patrons and elected members modeled on older literary and scholarly academies.[3][5] Soon after its foundation, the academy received federal recognition as an institution of public utility and was later given a legal status that allowed it to act in a technical and consultative capacity on matters related to its field.[6][7] The academy is also listed among the invited institutions represented in the plenary of Brazil's National Council for Cultural Policy, without voting rights.[8]
History
The academy was created within an institutional tradition already familiar in Brazil through the Brazilian Academy of Letters, whose founders adopted the French academy model and organized the institution around forty seats before its inaugural session in 1897.[9] Villa-Lobos and his colleagues adapted that structure to musical life, using numbered chairs, founders and patrons to connect living composers, performers, conductors, critics and musicologists with a longer Brazilian musical genealogy.[3][5]
Foundation and early recognition
The idea of creating a Brazilian academy devoted to music was brought to Villa-Lobos by Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez. Villa-Lobos, already one of the best-known Brazilian composers internationally, led the organization of the new institution. Its models were the Académie Française, founded in Paris in 1635, and the Brazilian Academy of Letters, founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1896.[3]
The first organizational meeting took place on 28 June 1945 and was attended by Villa-Lobos, Lorenzo Fernandez, João Baptista Julião, Florêncio de Almeida Lima and Arthur Iberê de Lemos. A second meeting, held on 30 June during a lunch at the Clube Ginástico Português in Rio de Janeiro, discussed the proposed statute and brought together a larger group of composers and musicologists, including José Cândido de Andrade Muricy, Luiz Heitor Corrêa de Azevedo, João Itiberê da Cunha, Jayme Ovalle, Brasílio Itiberê da Cunha Luz, Radamés Gnattali, Fructuoso Vianna and Eleazar de Carvalho. The academy was formally founded on 14 July 1945, also at the Clube Ginástico Português; members from São Paulo were represented by proxy by João Baptista Julião.[3]
The institution's name was settled only shortly before its foundation. The first proposed name was Academia de Música do Brasil. The name Academia Brasileira de Música had already been registered by the violinist Francisco Chiaffitelli, a professor at the Escola Nacional de Música, for an earlier concert association in Rio de Janeiro. Since that association was inactive, Chiaffitelli ceded the right to use the name to Villa-Lobos for the new academy.[3]
After the statute was approved, Villa-Lobos was elected president. The first board also included Andrade Muricy as secretary general, Luiz Heitor Corrêa de Azevedo as first secretary, Arthur Iberê de Lemos as second secretary and Lorenzo Fernandez as treasurer.[3] The inaugural ceremony was held on 24 November 1945 in the auditorium of the Associação Brasileira de Imprensa. It was followed by a musical program performed by the Orfeão de Professores do Conservatório Nacional de Canto Orfeônico and the pianist João de Souza Lima.[3][5]
The academy received early federal recognition. Decree No. 22,032 of 7 November 1946 declared it an institution of public utility.[6] Decree No. 23,160 of 6 June 1947 granted it the prerogative provided in article 513(d) of the Consolidation of Labor Laws.[7] That labor-law provision allowed certain bodies to collaborate with the state as technical and consultative institutions on matters connected with their fields; the 1947 decree was revoked in 1991.[7]
Early membership and activities
At its foundation, the academy was organized with fifty numbered chairs, each with a founder and a patron. The arrangement placed composers, musicologists, critics and other figures connected with Brazilian musical life within an honorary institutional structure modeled on older academies.[3] Luã Ferreira Leal has described the founding as the creation of a "pantheon of Brazilian music", in which the founders linked figures from the history of music in Brazil, such as José Maurício Nunes Garcia and Carlos Gomes, with younger musicians expected to extend that tradition.[5]
The academy soon created other forms of membership. On 17 May 1946, it approved the incorporation of up to twenty corresponding members, including foreign musicians and Brazilians living abroad. Early corresponding members included Gastão Bettencourt, Carleton Sprague Smith, Arthur Rubinstein, Francisco Curt Lange, Florent Schmitt, Gastón Talamón, Marguerite Long, Alberto Ginastera, Lauro Ayestarán, Marcel Beaufils, Fernando Lopes-Graça, Mieczysław Horszowski and Lamberto Baldi.[3] On 11 December 1948, the academy also created an extraordinary group of performer members for Brazilian-born or naturalized conductors, singers and instrumentalists. The group included Guiomar Novaes, Magdalena Tagliaferro, Antonieta Rudge, Tomás Terán, Arnaldo Estrella, Vera Janacópulos, Bidu Sayão, Alice Ribeiro, Cristina Maristany, Madalena Lébeis, Paulina D'Ambrosio, Oscar Borgerth, Iberê Gomes Grosso and Eugen Szenkar.[3]
For many years the academy did not have its own headquarters. Meetings, assemblies and events were held in members' homes and in institutions such as the Associação Brasileira de Imprensa, the Ministry of Education, the Conservatório Nacional de Canto Orfeônico, the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música and the Associação de Canto Coral. During Villa-Lobos's presidency, the academy received visiting musicians and scholars, including Aaron Copland in 1947, Florent Schmitt in 1949, Arthur Rubinstein in 1951, Gastão Bettencourt, Francisco Curt Lange and Marguerite Long.[3]
Villa-Lobos remained president through repeated re-elections until his death on 17 November 1959. The 1945 statute set one-year presidential terms and did not limit re-election.[3] Around three months before his death, Villa-Lobos left the academy 50 percent of the copyright income from his works. His will directed that two-thirds of that share should be paid to Arminda Neves d'Almeida, his companion, so that she could help safeguard his artistic estate in cooperation with the academy; the remaining 50 percent went to Lucília Villa-Lobos, his widow.[3] The Museu Villa-Lobos was created by federal decree in 1960, placing another institution beside the academy in the preservation of the composer's memory and work.[3]
Statutory reforms and membership renewal
Villa-Lobos was succeeded by Camargo Guarnieri, who served until December 1960, and then by Octávio Bevilacqua, who served until December 1961. Andrade Muricy was elected president on 15 December 1961 and remained in office until 1979, the longest presidency in the academy's history.[3]
During Andrade Muricy's administration, the academy revised the 1945 statute. The reform, approved on 22 December 1967, reduced the number of chairs from fifty to forty. Twelve chairs were abolished, the distribution of occupants was reorganized, and the list of patrons was changed to include the composers José Joaquim Emerico Lobo de Mesquita and Sigismund von Neukomm in two new chairs. The reform did not alter the corresponding and performer-member groups. At the same meeting, Villa-Lobos received the posthumous title of Grande Benemérito.[3]
In the final months of Andrade Muricy's presidency, the maestro and composer Raphael Baptista, then secretary general, acted as interim president because of Muricy's declining health. The joint resignation of Baptista and the treasurer Helza Camêu led to a new election, and Francisco Mignone became president in 1979. Mignone began a process of filling chairs that had remained vacant after the deaths of earlier members. In 1982, the academy elected Armando Albuquerque, Waldemar Henrique, Aloysio de Alencar Pinto, Aylton Escobar, Marlos Nobre, Ricardo Tacuchian and the musicologist Vasco Mariz.[3]
The academy's finances changed in 1985, after the death of Arminda Neves d'Almeida, when the institution began to receive the full 50 percent share of Villa-Lobos's copyright income assigned to it in his will. Marlos Nobre, who became president in 1986, continued the renewal of the membership. New members elected during his presidency included Lindembergue Cardoso, Ernst Widmer, Sérgio de Vasconcellos-Corrêa, Mário Tavares, Arnaldo José Senise, José Maria Neves, Henrique Morelenbaum and Ernst Mahle.[3]
A severe internal dispute followed in the early 1990s. Vasco Mariz was elected president for the 1991-1993 term, but litigation prevented him from taking office and disrupted the academy's activities for roughly two years. Regular administration resumed in 1993 with the presidency of Ricardo Tacuchian. A new statutory reform established two-year board terms, allowed only one consecutive re-election, created a vice-presidency and reorganized the offices of secretary and treasurer. The former performer-member group was abolished, and living performer members were incorporated into the general body of forty chairs. The reform also opened the academy more clearly to music educators.[3]
Headquarters and projects
After the death of Lucília Villa-Lobos's last heir, the academy came to hold all copyright rights to Villa-Lobos's works. With more regular income and professional management of those rights, it rented offices, hired staff and began to build a stable administrative structure. It first installed itself in a room of the Pen Clube do Brasil on Praia do Flamengo, in Rio de Janeiro.[3]
The academy's own headquarters were acquired during the administrations that followed Tacuchian. Edino Krieger, president from 1998 to 2001, and José Maria Neves, who became president in 2002, continued the institutional work begun in the 1990s. Neves began the purchase and renovation of the academy's permanent home, but died after eleven months in office. Krieger, then vice-president, completed the term and continued the process. The headquarters, known as the Casa de Villa-Lobos, opened in 2003 in the Lapa district of central Rio de Janeiro.[3]
From the 1990s onward, the academy expanded projects connected with preservation, publication and research. These included the Banco de Partituras, the Bibliografia Musical Brasileira, the Selo ABM Digital, the concert series Brasiliana, the interview series Trajetória, books, the journal Brasiliana, and composition and monograph competitions.[3] The Banco de Partituras developed into a catalogue and publication program for Brazilian concert music, including vocal, chamber and orchestral works preserved, edited or distributed by the academy.[10][11] The academy also maintains a publications program that includes catalogues, books and issues of Brasiliana.[12]
Library and research resources
The academy's headquarters houses the Biblioteca Mercedes Reis Pequeno, a library specialized in Brazilian music. It was inaugurated on 3 July 2015 and named for Mercedes Reis Pequeno, the librarian and academician who occupied Chair 7 of the academy.[13] Reis Pequeno was closely associated with music documentation in Brazil: she created the Divisão de Música e Arquivo Sonoro of the National Library of Brazil and remained connected with music librarianship, research and documentation throughout her career.[14]
The library's collection contains about 8,000 items and is centered on Brazilian music. Its holdings include books, theses, periodicals, scores, textual documents, photographs, recordings, newspaper clippings and concert programs.[13][15] Among its main groups are documents concerning the academy, its patrons, founders and members, and the Mercedes Reis Pequeno Collection, which includes books, periodicals, correspondence with musicians and musicologists, photographs, discs, newspaper clippings and concert programs.[13][15]
The academy also maintains the Base Brasiliana, an online catalogue for the library's records. When it became available online in 2017, the database included more than 1,000 catalogued records, with searches by author, title, subject, date, ISBN, ISSN and type of material. The medium-term plan announced at the time was to extend cataloguing to the rest of the collection, including theses, historical documents, photographs, newspaper clippings, concert programs, scores and the Mercedes Reis Pequeno Collection.[16] Local consultation is open to the public by appointment, while loans are restricted to members of the academy.[15]
The library continues to receive additions through donations and acquisitions. Recent additions have included books, scores and recordings donated by the academician Manoel Corrêa do Lago, with a substantial group of works on Portuguese music history, as well as a twenty-volume edition of Mozart's works donated by Béatrice Weiller Corrêa do Lago.[17]
Members
General list
The ABM's chairs, patrons, founders, previous successors and current members are organized as follows:[4]
part.jpg)
.png)
_-_Emilio_Biel_e_C.%C2%AA_(Museu_Bordalo_Pinheiro).png)
.png)
_(cropped).png)
Presidents
The academy's first board was elected after the approval of its founding statute in 1945. Villa-Lobos became president, with José Cândido de Andrade Muricy as secretary general, Luiz Heitor Corrêa de Azevedo as first secretary, Arthur Iberê de Lemos as second secretary and Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez as treasurer.[3] Villa-Lobos was repeatedly re-elected and remained president until his death on 17 November 1959. Under the original 1945 statute, presidential terms lasted one year and there was no limit on re-election.[3]
The presidency later followed the academy's statutory changes and periods of institutional reorganization. During Andrade Muricy's long administration, the 1945 statute was revised, the number of chairs was reduced and the academy was reorganized into forty seats. After a period of litigation and administrative interruption in the early 1990s, Ricardo Tacuchian's presidency marked the return of regular administration; a later statutory reform established two-year terms for the board and limited re-election to one consecutive term.[3] Later presidents included André Cardoso, elected for the 2014-2015 term, and João Guilherme Ripper, who took office in 2018.[18][19] In 2026, the composer and musicologist Ilza Nogueira became the first woman elected to preside over the academy, with a term running from 2026 to 2028.[20][21][2]
| Years | President | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1945-1959 | Heitor Villa-Lobos | Founder and first president; remained in office until his death in 1959.[3] |
| 1960 | Camargo Guarnieri | Succeeded Villa-Lobos and served one term.[3] |
| 1961 | Octávio Bevilacqua | Served one term.[3] |
| 1962-1979 | José Cândido de Andrade Muricy | Oversaw a revision of the 1945 statute and the reduction of the academy to forty chairs.[3] |
| 1979-1986 | Francisco Mignone | Began a process of renewing and filling vacant chairs after Andrade Muricy's long presidency.[3] |
| 1986-1991 | Marlos Nobre | Continued the recomposition of the membership begun under Mignone.[3] |
| 1991-1993 | Vasco Mariz | Elected president, but did not take office because of litigation that disrupted the academy's activities.[3] |
| 1993-1997 | Ricardo Tacuchian | Took office during the academy's return to regular administration and oversaw statutory reforms.[3] |
| 1998-2001 | Edino Krieger | Continued the administrative and programmatic work begun under Tacuchian.[3] |
| 2002 | José Maria Neves | Served the shortest presidency in the academy's history and began the acquisition and renovation of its own headquarters.[3] |
| 2003-2005 | Edino Krieger | Completed José Maria Neves's term after Neves's death and continued the work connected with the academy's headquarters.[3] |
| 2006-2009 | Ricardo Tacuchian | Returned for a second period as president.[3] |
| 2010-2013 | Turíbio Santos | Served two consecutive two-year terms.[3] |
| 2014-2017 | André Cardoso | Served two consecutive two-year terms.[3][18] |
| 2018-2021 | João Guilherme Ripper | Served two consecutive two-year terms.[3][19] |
| 2022-2025 | André Cardoso | Returned for a second period as president.[3] |
| 2026-2028 | Ilza Nogueira | First woman elected president of the academy.[3][20][21][2] |
See also
References
- ↑ "Academia Brasileira de Música". Mapa das Organizações da Sociedade Civil (in português). Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Ilza Nogueira assume presidência da Academia Brasileira de Música em solenidade no Rio de Janeiro". Academia Brasileira de Música (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26 3.27 3.28 3.29 3.30 3.31 3.32 3.33 3.34 3.35 3.36 3.37 3.38 3.39 3.40 3.41 3.42 "Sobre a Academia Brasileira de Música". Academia Brasileira de Música (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Acadêmicos". Academia Brasileira de Música (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Leal, Luã Ferreira (2017). Os atos de fundação do panteão: a construção institucional da Academia Brasileira de Música (PDF). XXIX Simpósio Nacional de História (in português). Brasília: Associação Nacional de História. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Decreto nº 22.032, de 7 de novembro de 1946". Planalto (in português). Presidência da República. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Decreto nº 23.160, de 6 de junho de 1947". Câmara dos Deputados (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ "Plenário do CNPC". Conselho Nacional de Política Cultural (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ "Fundação". Academia Brasileira de Letras (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ "Banco de Partituras". Academia Brasileira de Música (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ Tacuchian, Maria de Fátima Granja. "Catálogo Geral. Banco de partituras de Música Brasileira. Orquestra. Rio de Janeiro: Academia Brasileira de Música, 2000. 124p". InterFACES (in português). Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ "Publicações". Academia Brasileira de Música (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 "Biblioteca Mercedes Reis Pequeno". Academia Brasileira de Música (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ "ABM celebra centenário de Mercedes Reis Pequeno". Centro de Integração, Documentação e Difusão Cultural (in português). Universidade Estadual de Campinas. 14 October 2021. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 "Biblioteca Mercedes Reis Pequeno Academia Brasileira de Música". Redarte (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ "Base Brasiliana no ar". Redarte (in português). 19 January 2017. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ "Biblioteca Mercedes Reis Pequeno divulga lista de novas aquisições". Academia Brasileira de Música (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 "André Cardoso eleito presidente da ABM". Conexão UFRJ (in português). Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. 10 December 2013. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Abreu, Edward Ayres de (21 February 2018). "Uma nova fase para a Academia Brasileira de Música". Glosas (in português). Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Ilza Nogueira é a nova presidente da Academia Brasileira de Música". Revista Concerto (in português). 18 November 2025. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 "Primeira mulher a ocupar o cargo, professora aposentada da UFPB é eleita presidente da Academia Brasileira de Música". Universidade Federal da Paraíba (in português). 18 November 2025. Retrieved 21 May 2026.
Further reading
- Mariz, Vasco (2018). Heitor Villa-Lobos, compositor brasileiro (in português) (13th ed.). Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves; Academia Brasileira de Música. Search this book on
- Azevedo, Luiz Heitor Corrêa de; Mattos, Cleofe Person de; Reis, Mercedes de Moura (1952). Bibliografia musical brasileira, 1820-1950 (in português). Rio de Janeiro: Ministério da Educação e Saúde. Search this book on
- Mariz, Vasco (1981). História da música no Brasil (in português). Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira. Search this book on
- Banco de Partituras de Música Brasileira: Orquestra: catálogo geral (in português). Rio de Janeiro: Academia Brasileira de Música. 2000. Search this book on
- Brasiliana: revista da Academia Brasileira de Música. Rio de Janeiro: Academia Brasileira de Música. ISSN 1516-2427. Script error: The function "in_lang" does not exist.
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Academia Brasileira de Música. |
This article "Brazilian Academy of Music" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Brazilian Academy of Music. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
.jpg){kind=link}
._Fallecido_em_1800.jpg){kind=link}
_em_1905,_em_1887,_aos_18_anos.jpg){kind=link}
,_Homero_de_S%C3%A1_Barreto,_Musica_Brasilis.jpg){kind=link}
