General information
The Latin American Music Center fosters the research and performance of Latin American art music. Founded in 1961 by distinguished composer and musicologist Juan Orrego-Salas, the Center continues to expand its important library, promotes exchanges between musicians and scholars from the United States and Latin America, and commissions, performs, and records exemplary music from the region. Following the retirement of Juan Orrego-Salas in 1987, composer Ricardo Lorenz became Acting Director from 1987 to 1992. Conductor Carmen Téllez has been the Director of the Center from 1992 to the present.
The library of the Latin American Music Center is one of the most complete collections of Latin American art music in the world. The collection includes rare manuscripts and published scores, records and books, anthologies of colonial music, photographs of musicians, periodicals, microfilms and miscellaneous documents. Important private collections have been donated to the LAMC as well. Guillermo Espinosa's lifetime collection was bequeathed to our archives in 1994. Espinosa was the founder and director of the Inter-American music festivals that took place from late 1950s up to 1982 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington D.C.
Contacts among musicians, students, academics, and the public provide a stimulus for research and appreciation for Latin American music. The Center has sponsored the Inter-American Composition Workshops and has initiated a Publication Series with Indiana University Press. A Collaboration with the Office of Education of the Embassy of Spain has produced the Annual Competition in the Performance of Music from Spain and Latin America. The yearly winners of the competition have recorded a compact disk that is distributed worldwide thanks to the efforts of all the participating agencies. Olimpia Barbera, music teacher and patron of the arts, graciously supports a scholarship fund for outstanding music students from Latin American countries who wish to study at Indiana University School of Music.
The Center has created two regular classes in Latin American Music: M690-Graduate Seminar in Latin American Music and M413/M513-Latin American Popular Music.The Center also sponsors the Latin American Popular Music Ensemble (X040). Students can carry an individualized minor in Latin American Music in their doctoral programs, with the approval of the Director of the LAMC and the Director of Music Graduate Studies. Students wishing to pursue a degree in Musicology with an emphasis on Latin American Music should register in the Musicology Program through the School of Music. They can later decide to focus on a Latin American Music topic for their dissertation, in which case they will count with the administrative and infrastructural support of the Latin American Music Center.
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