Esther Scliar

Origin

Porto Alegre, RS

Genres

classical music, contemporary music, mpb

Instruments

piano, conducting

Biography

Esther Scliar was born in Porto Alegre on September 28, 1926, building a fundamental career as a Brazilian composer, musicologist, conductor, music teacher, and pianist. She spent part of her childhood in Uruguay and in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, where she had her first deep contacts with music and began her piano studies. Later, she settled in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul and graduated in piano from the Instituto de Belas Artes of Porto Alegre in 1945, subsequently deepening her studies in composition and conducting under the tutelage of central figures such as Hans-Joachim Koellreutter and Claudio Santoro.

The artist moved permanently to Rio de Janeiro starting in 1956, where she developed intense creative and pedagogical activity. She taught music theory, perception, analysis, and didactics at the Pró Arte music seminars, in addition to composing scores for the theater and highly relevant choral and instrumental pieces. As an educator, she exerted a profound influence on several generations of nationally renowned musicians, having taught major icons of MPB and Brazilian instrumental music, such as Milton Nascimento, Paulinho da Viola, and Egberto Gismonti.

Esther Scliar passed away in Rio de Janeiro on March 18, 1978, leaving an indelible legacy for Brazil's classical and popular music. Her work navigates between the academic rigor of modern composition and the use of elements of national folklore, cementing her name alongside other exponents of Brazilian concert music such as Edino Krieger and Eunice Katunda.