Edson Zampronha

This re-interpretation appears clearly in his use of musical rhetoric resources. Zampronha’s main rhetoric strategy is first to induce the listener to understand the musical discourse in a specific way. Then, during the development of the work this understanding surprisingly changes to another one. There is a change of meaning in what we listen to. However, the first meaning never completely disappears. Thus, the old and the new understandings overlap, creating tension that becomes the axis of the composition.

Edson Zampronha’s catalog of compositions includes more than 100 compositions for orchestra, electroacoustic music, opera, sound installations, and chamber music. Some of his works are:

Sensibile – Performed by Attilio Mastrogiovanni, this CD includes the works:

Modelagens – It includes the following works:

S'io esca vivo – Performed by Karin Fernandes and special guests, this CD includes:

In 2008 he interrupts a sequence of 16 years as a professor of musical composition at the São Paulo State University. He transferred his residency to León (Spain) and started a new period of musical composition and research.

In 2006 one of the leading classic music labels in Brazil, Clássicos, releases a CD fully dedicated to his compositions for piano, for the first time including a CD dedicated to contemporary music in their collection.

As of 1999 he starts an international agenda. He has been invited composer as the Laboratory for Musical Informatics and Electronics at the Center for Diffusion of Contemporary Music (LIEM-CDMC, Madrid); the Phonos Foundation at the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), and the Electroacoustic Music Studios of the University of Birmingham (England). He has developed two post-doctorate researches on music and meaning, one at the University of Helsinki (Finland), in 2000, and another one at the University of Valladolid (Spain), in 2005. During this period his concept of re-interpretation applied to musical form was first used.

Since the 1990s he has received commissions from different groups and institutions, as from the Museum for Applied Arts, Cologne (Germany); from the Mexican Center for Music and Sound Arts CMMAS in México, and from the São Paulo State Symphonic Band for the 100th Anniversary of Sao Paulo State Art Gallery, in 2005 (São Paulo, Brazil).

In 1983 he starts the course on Music Composition and Conducting at the São Paulo State University. In 1991 he concludes a Master Degree in Musical Composition at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and in 1992 he starts a large and fruitful period as a professor of musical composition at the São Paulo State University. In 1998 he concludes the Doctorate on Communication and Semiotics – Arts, at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, where he first applied semiotic tools for music composition.

Edson Zampronha was born in Rio de Janeiro into a family of musicians. He started out his musical training at a young age at home. His first lessons included musical composition, history of music, theory, harmony, counterpoint and musical analysis, besides piano playing. His family moved from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo in 1969. In 1978 he was introduced into electroacoustic music composition, and his first experiments were done in a four-channel Revox tape recorder.

Edson Zampronha (born June 2, 1963) is a Brazilian composer dedicated to contemporary experimental music. His works include pieces for orchestra, symphonic band, electroacoustic music, chamber music, sound installations, interactive works and music for films. His music makes an extensive use of rhetoric strategies to create new forms of musical tensions and musical discourses. His research focus on musical signification and it takes semiotics, music theory and technology as backgrounds.