Since becoming an Emmy Award winner for my performances of “Latin Spectacular” with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 1999, I realized that unknowingly, I already had been researching and collecting a vast quantity of orchestral music from Latin American and the Caribbean for the previous 13 years.
While a teenager in Peru, my first music teacher, Peruvian composer Enrique Iturriaga (1918-2019) incited in me the love for music by living composers in particularly from our neighboring countries. I realized that there is an enormous musical wealth in Latin America and the Caribbean that has yet to be share with audiences, musicians, and scholars around the globe. One of the biggest challenges of my research is the lack of available centralized information about composers and their works, as well as the lack of accessibility to printed scores. Through my continuous research made available at Latin Orchestral Music, a comprehensive online catalog of orchestral music from Latin America and the Caribbean (www.latinorchestralmusic.com), over 9,000 orchestral works by more than 1,600 composers from 25 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean can be found and traced.
My passion for this work continues to excite my curiosity for what I don’t know yet. If you are a composer from Latin America and the Caribbean, or have roots from these territories and need to get in touch with me, please email me at miguel@miguelharth-bedoya.com or email the staff at Latin Orchestral Music at catalog@filarmonika.com
