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Last updated on Tuesday, April 2, 2013
(BLOOMINGTON) - Chilean pianist, composer and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Professor Emeritus Alfonso Montecino has donated his legacy collection to the school’s Latin American Music Center.
"With the mission of fostering the development of all Latin American music, the center offers music students and scholars performance and research materials from throughout Latin America," said Erick Carballo, interim director of the center, in a prepared statement. "A very special component of these unique materials is the legacy collections that composers and their families donate to us. It is with honor and a great sense of responsibility that we accept the donation of the Montecino legacy collection."
The collection includes scores and sketches of all of Montecino's compositions, letters, newspaper clippings and concert programs associated with his outstanding international career, as well as piano scores with his own performance markings, photographs and other personal items.
Montecino was born in Osorno, Chile, in 1924. He moved to Santiago and studied piano with Alberto Spikin and composition with Domingo Santa Cruz. He moved to the U.S. in 1947.
"We are honored to steward the materials of Alfonso Montecino," said Philip Ponella, director of the William and Gayle Cook Music Library, "not only because of his high profile as a performer and a promoter of Latin American music, but also because of his association of many years with the Jacobs School of Music and with Indiana University."
Montecino developed an international concert career for his performances of the great works for keyboard, such as J. S. Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" and Beethoven's Piano Sonatas. He also promoted the music of Latin American composers, contributing to the repertory as a composer himself.
He joined the piano faculty at the Jacobs School of Music in 1963, serving until 1988, when he retired as professor emeritus.
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