Sergio Cervetti

Biography

Sergio Cervetti Guigou (born 9 November 1940 in Dolores, Soriano) 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.

Chamber

Five episodes for violin, cello and piano (1965) (Cinco episodios para violín, violonchelo y piano)
Six sequences : for dance (1966) for chamber orchestra
Divertimento, para cuarteto de maderas (1967) for woodwind quartet
Zinctum (1969) for string quartet
Dies tenebrarum (1968) for electric organ, percussion, choir and strings
Prisons No. 1 (1969) for dancers, musicians, singers and pantomime
Pulsar (1969) for brass sextet
Cuatro fragmentos de Pablo Neruda (1970) for soprano, oboe, violoncello and percussion
Peripetia (1970) for voices and musicians
Cocktail Party (1970) work for music-theatre
Lux Lucet in Tenebris ("and the light shineth in the darkness") (1970) for a cappella voices
Plexus (1971) for chamber orchestra
Raga I (1971) for ensemble
...de la tierra... (...from the earth...) (1972) for ensemble
Concerto for Trumpet and Strings (1974), reorchestrated 2015
Duelle (1974) concerto for cor anglais and string bass
Madrigal III (1976) for two sopranos and small ensemble
Ines de Castro (1988) ballet
The Triumph of Death (El Triunfo de la Muerte) (1993) mezzo-soprano and piano; Text: Circe Maia
House of Blues (1995) for wind ensemble
Nazca (2010) for string orchestra
Toward the Abyss (2015) piano quintet
And the Huddled Masses (2015) for clarinet and string quartet

Opera

Elegy for a Prince (2005) opera in two acts. Libretto: Elizabeth Esris
YUM! (2008) opera in one act for voices and chamber ensemble. Libretto: Elizabeth Esris

Orchestra

El Carro de Heno (The Hay Wain) (1967) for chamber choir and orchestra
Orbitas (1967) for orchestra
Candombe II (1996) for orchestra
Descent (2001) piano and orchestra
Consolamentum (2016) for orchestra
Et in Arcadia ego (2017) symphonic poem
Fanfare: Gated Angel (2019) for orchestra

Solo instrument or voice

Guitar Music (the Bottom of the Iceberg) (1975)
Four Fragments of Isadora (1979) soprano; Text: Letters of Duncan and Craig
Three Pieces for Marimba (2014)

Works with electronics or tape

Studies in Silence (1968) for electronics
Oulom for tape, in 1970
Graffiti (1971) for spoken chorus, orchestra and tape
Prisons No. 2 (1970-–71) for spoken choir, orchestra and tape
Raga II (1971) for trombone and tape
Raga III (1971) for tape
Stella Vindemiatrix (1975) for oboe and pre-recorded oboe
Bits & pieces and Moving Parts (1977) for tape
El Rio de los Pajaros Pintados (1979) for bandoneon and tape
Something Borrowed, Something Blue (1979–1980) for tape