Sergio Cervetti


Sergio Cervetti 'Guigou' is a Uruguayan composer and teacher domiciled in the United States. His early compositional language reflects the post serialist Uruguayan avant-garde, often employing electronics and complex graphical notation. He gained international prominence in 1966 when he achieved first place with 5 Episodes for Piano Trio in the Inter-American Music Festival in Caracas, Venezuela. His compositions have been widely recorded on labels such as Albany Records, Vienna Modern Masters, and Navona Records, which have been reviewed in Gramophone and The Washington Post. His music has been played by renowned orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra and New York City Opera.

Biography

Sergio Cervetti was exposed to music at a young age by his parents. His Italian father was a clarinettist and his French mother helped motivate him to learn the piano. His early piano studies were with José María Martino Rodas and Hugo Balzo and later studied counterpoint and harmony at the National Conservatory with Carlos Estrada and Guido Santorsola.
In 1962 he left Uruguay to study composition in the United States at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore under Austrian-born composer Ernst Krenek and South African composer Stefans Grové, graduating in 1967.
In 1969, Cervetti, went to Berlin to take up a one-year DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program composer-in-residence. Whilst in Germany he received Baden-Baden commissions and wrote an a cappella work Lux Lucet In Tenebris which won a Gaudeamus International Composers Award which was premiered at the festival in Zwolle.
After 1970, Cervetti attended the Electronic Music Centre at Columbia-Princeton University where he studied under Vladimir Ussachevsky and Mario Davidovsky.
Whilst in New York, he taught for 25 years at the Tisch School of the Arts having started his tenure in 1972. As Master Teacher of Music he tutored in music history, composition and historic dance.

Selected works

Chamber

  • Five episodes for violin, cello and piano
  • Six sequences : for dance for chamber orchestra
  • Divertimento, para cuarteto de maderas for woodwind quartet
  • Zinctum for string quartet
  • Dies tenebrarum for electric organ, percussion, choir and strings
  • Prisons No. 1 for dancers, musicians, singers and pantomime
  • Pulsar for brass sextet
  • Cuatro fragmentos de Pablo Neruda for soprano, oboe, violoncello and percussion
  • Peripetia for voices and musicians
  • Cocktail Party work for music-theatre
  • Lux Lucet in Tenebris for a cappella voices
  • Plexus for chamber orchestra
  • Raga I for ensemble
  • ...de la tierra... for ensemble
  • Concerto for Trumpet and Strings, reorchestrated 2015
  • Duelle concerto for cor anglais and string bass
  • Madrigal III for two sopranos and small ensemble
  • Ines de Castro ballet
  • The Triumph of Death '''' mezzo-soprano and piano; Text: Circe Maia
  • House of Blues for wind ensemble
  • Nazca for string orchestra
  • Toward the Abyss piano quintet
  • And the Huddled Masses for clarinet and string quartet

    Opera

  • Elegy for a Prince opera in two acts. Libretto: Elizabeth Esris
  • YUM! opera in one act for voices and chamber ensemble. Libretto: Elizabeth Esris

    Orchestra

  • El Carro de Heno for chamber choir and orchestra
  • Orbitas for orchestra
  • Candombe II for orchestra
  • Descent piano and orchestra
  • Consolamentum for orchestra
  • Et in Arcadia ego symphonic poem
  • Fanfare: Gated Angel for orchestra

    Solo instrument or voice

  • Guitar Music
  • Four Fragments of Isadora soprano; Text: Letters of Duncan and Craig
  • Three Pieces for Marimba

    Works with electronics or tape

  • Studies in Silence for electronics
  • Oulom for tape, in 1970
  • Graffiti for spoken chorus, orchestra and tape
  • Prisons No. 2 for spoken choir, orchestra and tape
  • Raga II for trombone and tape
  • Raga III for tape
  • Stella Vindemiatrix for oboe and pre-recorded oboe
  • Bits & pieces and Moving Parts for tape
  • El Rio de los Pajaros Pintados for bandoneon and tape
  • Something Borrowed, Something Blue for tape

    Discography

  • 1987 – The Hay Wain, Sergio Cervetti.
  • 1998 – New Music for Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Jiri Mikula.
  • 2011 – From East to West, Music from Ukraine to Uruguay, Lithuanian Music Academy Chamber Choir.
  • 2012 – Nazca and Other Works Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic Chamber Players, Vit Micka, cond. Petr Vronský.
  • 2015 – Las Indias Olvidadas
  • 2017 – Sunset at Noon, Vít Muzík, María Teresa Chenlo,cond. Enrique Pérez Mesa, Kühn Choir of Prague, cond. Marek Vorlicek.
  • 2016 – Pursuing Freedom, UNC Percussion Ensemble, Juan Álamo.
  • 2020 – Mortal Dreams: Four Vocal Works Sergio Cervetti, Cara Latham, Charles Abramovic.
  • 2022 – Sparks : Eye of London, London Symphony Orchestra, cond. Miran Vaupotić.