Elomar (composer)

~ Person

Annotation

Elomar Figueira de Mello is a Brazilian Northeastern composer from the rural area of Vitória da Conquista, in the state of Bahia de Todos os Santos. The son of a prosperous farmer and his Methodist wife, he has grown up under the influence of both the Christian, Protestant faith and of violeiros, the troubadours that range all Brazilian hinterland singing their own and others’s compositions, with themes related to the cordel literature.

He tried to study Music with a Swiss professor living in Brazil, but their ideas about roots music were incompatible, Elomar having a vision both more dynamic and more linked to the mentality of the people, while still fully committed to the sophistication and quality of Classical music; while his teacher wanted, and produced, a fully Contemporary music with influences from the region. Elomar’s music, while keeping the Classical forms of operas, cantatas, oratorios and other sacred music, has a distinctive Mediæval flavour, Elomar mantaining in his characteristic, idiosyncratic speech that ‘Brazilian Northeast is the last time of the Middle Ages’ (‘O Nordeste é o último tempo da Idade Média’).

He was Secretary of Urbanism for Vitória da Conquista for a while. Now he keeps a home at the city but spends most of his time in his goat-raising farm, where he shares in the work of the farm and direct it, besides writing down his music. He says he has most of it ready in his mind, and he only asks God time enough to live to be able to write it all down.

Elomar has a passion for European culture with a strong preference for the French, while totally rejecting the Anglo-Saxon one. He is nearly a Luddite, thinking all technology misused. He is deeply religious and thinks all modern European culture dead and sick.

His music, while not too difficult to hear, is quite sophisticated and manages to successfully combine both modern and Mediæval elements. It carries expressions of deep faith both by the author himself and the poetical egos. It has some striking themes to it, some universal – like Incelença ad Moribundum Solem, a requiem thanking God for all the services the Sun has performed us, to be sung when it finally dies somewhere in the future – and some parochial, like the fate of specific, if fictional violeiros and migrants from the dry, feudalised lands of the Northeast to the rich, industrial lands of the Southeast.

Some connoisseurs consider him the greatest living musician, because he manages to do Classical music that is modern and relevant to today's time while still being deeply stepped in his region’s mentality and beliefs, totally avoiding the Nihilism seen as dominating modern art in general and Contemporary music specifically.

Annotation last modified on 2006-06-23 15:21 UTC.

Legal name: Elomar Figueira Mello

Discography

Unspecified type

YearTitleArtistRatingReleases
2002Cantoria BrasileiraElomar, Pena Branca, Renato Teixeira, Teca Calazans & Xangai1

Album

YearTitleArtistRatingReleases
1973…das barrancas do Rio GaviãoElomar3
1978Na Quadrada das Águas PerdidasElomar2
1981Fantasia Leiga para um Rio SecoElomar, Orquestra Sinfônica da Bahia & Lindenbergue Cardoso3
1983Auto da CatingueiraElomar3
1983Cartas CatingueirasElomar1
1992Árias SertânicasElomar1
1995Cantoria 3Elomar1
ConSertãoElomar, Paulo Moura, Arthur Moreira Lima & Heraldo do Monte1

Album + Soundtrack

YearTitleArtistRatingReleases
1985SertaniaErnst Widmer & Elomar1

Album + Live

YearTitleArtistRatingReleases
1984Cantoria 1Elomar, Geraldo Azevedo, Vital Farias, Xangai1
1986Dos Confins do SertãoElomar1
1988Cantoria 2Elomar, Geraldo Azevedo, Vital Farias, Xangai2
1988Conserto SertanezElomar, Xangai, Turibio Santos, João Omar1
1989Elomar em ConcertoElomar1
2002Cantoria BrasileiraElomar, Pena Branca, Renato Teixeira, Teca Calazans & Xangai1
2005Parcelada malungaElomar e Arthur Moreira Lima participação especial de Zé Gomes e Xangai1
2017O Menestrel e o SertãomundoElomar, Orquestra Sinfônica Nacional & Tobias Volkmann51

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