Antón García Abril

Biography

Antón García Abril OAXS (19 May 1933 – 17 March 2021) was a Spanish composer and musician. He composed many classical orchestral works, chamber and vocal pieces, as well as over 150 scores for film and television.

Biography

Between 1974 and 2003, García Abril was head of the department of Compositions and Musical Forms (Composición y Formas Musicales) of the Madrid Royal Conservatory, and in 1982 he was elected a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. In 1994, he was awarded Spain's Premio Nacional de Música for composition, and in 2008, he was also named a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos in Valencia.
He died on 17 March 2021, at the age of 87 from COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain.

Classical works

García Abril composed many orchestral works and chamber and vocal pieces, as well as music for films and television series such as El hombre y la Tierra, Fortunata y Jacinta, Anillos de oro, Segunda enseñanza, Brigada Central, Ramón y Cajal, La ciudad no es para mí and Compuesta y sin novio.
In 1966, he composed the soundtrack for the film Texas, Adios, a Spaghetti Western starring Franco Nero. Also, in 1969, he worked alongside Rafael Romero Marchent, a film director from Madrid, on the soundtrack of the movie Awkward Hands, another Spaghetti Western. He also composed the music for Amando de Ossorio's Blind Dead series of films, being Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972), Return of the Blind Dead (1973), The Ghost Galleon (1974) and Night of the Seagulls (1975).

Opera

Divinas Palabras, after the play by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán (1991)

Musical comedies

Un Millón de Rosas (1971)
Mata-Hari (1983)

Solo Violin

6 Partitas (2019) commissioned and recorded by Hilary Hahn.

Honours

Knight Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise (Kingdom of Spain, 16 December 2005).