Miguel Alcázar was born in
Mexico City on April 26 1942. He followed a professional career which involved
activities in the fields of performance, pedagogy, musicology and composition.
He gave the first performances of the Concertino by Blas Galindo, with
the composer himself conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the
Concierto of Manuel Ponce, in its original version, the Concerto of
Michael Horvit, which was dedicated to Alcázar, the Concierto of Enrique
Santos, with the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, and the 24 Preludios of
Ponce. His recorded output includes music for baroque guitar of music in the
manuscript 1560 in the Biblioteca Nacional, works by Bach and Weiss for lute, as
well as unpublished music by Ponce and other Latin-American composers. Alcázar
has been a faculty member of the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Conservatorio
Nacional de Música, where he received his degree with honors in 1972, and later
at the University of Veracruz. His publications of Mexican music were published
by the Liga de Compositores de Mexico, the University of Veracruz, Tecla
Editions of London and Editions Orphée.
The
12 Preludios were written by Miguel Alcázar as the result of his first
two trips to the Soviet Union. During the first trip, in November-December of
1983, he met Nikita Koshkin during the presentation of Alcázar's work at the
Union of Composers in Moscow. A few days later, he promised to write something
for him, as a way of commemorating the beginning of their friendship, if
Alcázar would write also something for Koshkin. Both agreed upon this and when
Alcázar went back to the Soviet Union, for the International Music Festival
held in May of 1984, Koshkin gave him The Elves, a suite in five
movements. The composition of the 12 Preludios was started during the
Christmas vacation of 1984 and terminated by mid-January of 1985. Both works,
The Elves and the 12 Preludios were premiered by Alcázar at the
Ponce Hall of the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico City on March 15 of 1988.
