Gonzalo de Olavide y Casenave (28 March 1934 – 4 November 2005) was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 born in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

.

Biography

Olavide studied composition initially with Victorino Echevarría at the Conservatorio Superior de Madrid, then in Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 at the conservatories of Antwerp and Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

. He attended the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik

Darmstadt New Music Summer School

Initiated in 1946 by Wolfgang Steinecke, the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt , held annually until 1970 and subsequently every two years, encompass both the teaching of composition and interpretation and include premières of new works...

 where he worked with Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

 and Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...

, and later studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

 and Henri Pousseur

Henri Pousseur

Henri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...

 at the Second, Third, and Fourth Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 Courses for New Music in 1964–65, 1965–66, and 1966–67. For twenty years he lived and worked in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

, returning to Spain in 1991.

Olavide composed orchestral, chamber, solo, and electronic music. In 1986 he received the Premio Nacional de Música

Premio Nacional de Música

The Premio Nacional de Música forms part of the annual National Awards in Spain....

, and in 2001 the Premio Reina Sofia.

Compositions

• Triludio (1963)
• Índices, for chamber orchestra (1964)
• Henri à quatre, composed jointly with Holger Schüring [Czukay
  Holger Czukay
  Holger Czukay is a German musician, probably best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can. Described by critic Jason Ankeny as "successfully bridg[ing] the gap between pop and the avant-garde," Czukay is also notable for creating early important examples of ambient music, for exploring...
  
  ], Attilio Filieri, and Ivan Tcherepnin
  Ivan Tcherepnin
  Ivan Tcherepnin was an experimental, then later modernist/postmodernist, composer. He was born into a highly musical family, his father and grandfather, Alexander and Nikolai, being distinguished Russian composers, and his mother Ming a well-known pianist...
  
  (1965)
• Quartet (1971)
• Sine die, for orchestra (1972)
• Quasi una cadenza, for chamber ensemble (1973)
• Clamor I, electronic music (1974)
• Clamor II, for tape and large orchestra (1974)
• Clamor III, for voice, two pianos, and percussion (1974)
• Symphony "Homenaje a Falla" (1977)
• El Cántico (1978)
• Oda, on a text by Antonio Machado (1980)
• Cante in memoriam García Lorca, for orchestra (1980)
• Quinto Hymno de Desesperanza (1983)
• La extravagancia, for chamber ensemble (1985)
• Perpetuum mobile, for piano (1986)
• Tres fragmentos imaginarios, for piano (1987)
• Orbe-Variations, for orchestra (1988)
• Alternante, for chamber orchestra (1989)
• Silente-Aria (1991)
• Minimal, for piano (1993)
• Precipiten (Música impresa), for cello and piano (1993)
• Varianza, for flute, oboe, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello (1995)
• Vol(e), for accordion (1997)
• Tránsito, for string orchestra (1997)
• El piso cerrado, radiophonic work (2001)
• Fragmentario, for amplified cello and electronic music (2004)

Sources

• Guibert, Alvaro. 1996. Gonzálo de Olavide. Catálogos de compositores españoles. Madrid: Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE). ISBN 8480481455
• Tamayo Ballesteros, Arturo. 1991. "La música en España, hoy. XVI: La música española en el extranjero." Boletín informativo: Fundación Juan March, no. 211 (June–July): 3–8.
• Téllez, José Luis. 2005. "Un espíritu libre." Scherzo: Revista de música no. 203 (December): 5.