Born in Barcelona in 1933, Leonardo Balada is one of the leading Spanish composers working in a highly personal modern idiom. Starting life as a piano student, he later moved to composition, studying with Persichetti and Dello Joio at the Juilliard School of Music in the United States. He was later to enjoy a period of study with Aaron Copland. Balada was completely opposed to serialism, though he was equally reluctant to accept neo-classicism. From these opposing ideals there grew an independent musical voice that could be called avant-garde in a personalised sense. His music turned unto a wild explosion of sonorities, rhythm and drama in works such works as Guernica, Maria Sabina, No-res and Steel Symphony. Some years later he ventured in a new direction with Sinfonia en Negro-Homage to Martin Luther King and Homage to Casals and Sarasate, in what could be construed as a third stylistic period. Here he blended the avant-garde with ethnic and traditional ideas. He has held key posts, including the head of music at the United Nations International School based in New York, and has occupied the position of professor of composition at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He has composed in most genres, though it is in the field of orchestral and chamber music that most of his music resides.
www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/balada/index.htm
