Blas Galindo

Blas Galindo Dimas was a Mexican composer and Broadway performer born on February 3, 1910, in San Gabriel, Jalisco, who died on April 19, 1993. He appeared on Broadway in 1939 in the production Mexicana.

Galindo pursued his musical education at the National Conservatory in Mexico City on an intermittent basis between 1931 and 1944. His teachers there included Carlos Chávez in composition, Candelario Huízar, José Rolón, and Manuel Rodríguez Vizcarra in piano. In 1934, he joined fellow composers Daniel Ayala, Salvador Contreras, and José Pablo Moncayo in forming the Grupo de los cuatro, a collective dedicated to incorporating indigenous Mexican musical materials into art-music compositions.

In 1941, Galindo served as an assistant at the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood and studied under Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center, returning for a second period of study there in 1942. That same year, his orchestral suite Arroyos received a performance at Tanglewood. Upon his return to Mexico in 1942, he joined the faculty of the National Conservatory as a professor of composition, teaching subjects that included harmony, counterpoint, musical analysis, history of music, and composition. He also conducted the conservatory's student orchestra and oversaw reforms to its bylaws and the construction of a new building.

In September 1947, Carlos Chávez appointed Galindo Director of the National Conservatory of Music, a position he held until 1961. That same year he was also named Chief of the Department for the National Institute of Fine Arts and director of its music department. In August 1949, he traveled to Warsaw to serve as an adjudicator at the fourth Chopin piano competition, using the occasion to visit seven countries in Europe to inspect schools of music.

Galindo married Ernestina Mendoza Vega in 1952. He became Director of Artistic Activities for the Mexican Social Security Institute in 1955, and in 1959 the institute named him Chief of the Music Section of the Department of Social Services. Beginning in 1960, he conducted the Social Security Institute's Symphony Orchestra, a role he held through 1965. That same year, a fellowship from the Secretary of Public Education allowed him to concentrate more fully on composition. Following his retirement in 1965, he dedicated himself to writing music both for personal satisfaction and on commission, often withdrawing from Mexico City to a house in the country for extended periods. In 1974, he directed the Conservatory orchestra and chorus to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the new building's opening, and in July of that year he accompanied the President of Mexico on a trip to South America alongside a group of other intellectuals.

Among the honors Galindo received were the José Angel Lamas prize from the Secretary of Public Education, an honor diploma from the Venezuelan Society of Authors and Composers, a gold medal as the best composer of the year, a diploma from the Municipality of Los Angeles, California, and the National Arts and Science Award for 1958 to 1964, presented by Mexican President Adolfo Lopez Mateos.

Galindo's catalog of compositions numbers more than 150 works across a wide range of genres and ensemble forces. His orchestral output includes Sones de Mariachi from 1940, the first Piano Concerto from 1942, the ballet La Manda from 1951, Sinfonía breve for strings from 1956, Symphony No. 2 from 1957, Symphony No. 3 from 1961, and concertos for flute, violin, and cello, among others. His vocal works include three songs from 1939, the Cantata a la Patria from 1946 based on the poem Suave Patria by Ramón López Velarde, the cantata Letania erótica para la paz from 1965, and Cinco canciones a la madre muerta for voice and piano from 1975. His chamber music includes sonatas for clarinet and piano, cello and piano, and violin and piano, as well as a Piano Quintet and a String Quartet. His solo piano works span from La lagartija in 1935 through a Preludio No. 6 completed in 1987. He also composed the 1955 film score for Raices.