Carlos Micháns
From 1995 to 2012 he was in charge of Podium Neerlandés, a program of Radio Nederland (the Dutch international broadcast) for Latin American audiences featuring recordings made in the Netherlands' major concert halls.
Born in Buenos Aires into a middle-class family with Spanish, French, English, Scottish and North American (USA) ancestry, Micháns[1] started taking piano and theory lessons at seven, but gave up after a few years.
However, his first lessons in composition at seventeen with Roberto García Morillo,[2] a major figure in Argentine music, did not prove a great success, which Micháns attributed to his teacher’s lack of pedagogical skill and insight.
At the same time he studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue with Susana Oliveto,[3] a young and knowledgeable woman composer who would become his true musical mentor and a lifelong friend.
In 1967 he was granted a two-year scholarship by Almah Melgar which enabled him to study organ with her husband Carlos Larrimbe,[4] a renowned choir conductor and organist at St. Saviour’s Church in Buenos Aires.
Disorientated by this sudden change of scenario, he nevertheless continued his studies of choir and orchestra conducting at the University of Buenos Aires and the Art Institute of Argentina's major opera house, Teatro Colón, which he completed almost simultaneously in 1973.
The political unrest in Argentina in the early 1970s and the return to power of the corrupt peronist regime brought about a reorganization of the theater and the reincorporation of staff previously dismissed by the former board of directors.
It also caused Pedro Valenti Costa,[5] head of the Art Institute and directly responsible for Micháns' eventual appointment as an assistant conductor, to resign.
A few years of uncertainty about his future followed, during which he took up drawing and sculpting (he even held a couple of public exhibitions) and enrolled in the Faculty of Veterinary, which he believed might provide a safer source of income in cattle-land Argentina.
This new venture, however, was short lived, and he quit the faculty after a few months, since constant demonstrations by the militant peronist youth on the one hand and aggressive indoctrination by left-wing teachers on the other, made studying almost impossible.
Back from a short visit to the Netherlands in 1981, Micháns applied for a scholarship from the Dutch government which would enable him to free himself from work and other obligations and concentrate purely on composition.
Since 2011, Micháns divides his time between the Netherlands and France, where, apart from composing, he organises concerts and participates in other cultural activities, mainly in the northeastern region of Champagne-Ardenne.
The main aim of the Centre is to hold exhibitions of Micháns' comprehensive art collections, which cover various fields (paintings, drawings, textiles) and cultures (Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas).
Examples of this art are the carvings of heads and figures depicting African men and women, whether nude or wearing traditional clothes and elaborate hairstyles.
Because many of these objects reveal considerable technical skill in spite of their relative lack of personality, it is Micháns’ strong belief that they cannot be lightly discarded as “popular” or “traditional” art, which tends to imply little or no artistic value.
One remarkable feature of “afroccidentalism” is that, by portraying African individuals from different cultures and regions in their traditional attires and hairstyles, it preserves a three-dimensional, realistic image of a world that is rapidly changing and, were it not thanks to photography, films and these true-to-life objects, would completely be forgotten.
Whereas the African “reference” is often present in their production, it is not in a merely folkloristic or “tribal” sense, but purely as a genuine addition to a stream of contemporary art still building up its own personality, however fragmented and diversified this may be.
On the other hand, sustained exposure to new music from all over the world rarely heard in Argentina, would result in a gradual updating of his regular style (strongly influenced by the free and aggressive dissonances of Bartók and Prokofiev), without breaking with tradition altogether.
Never interested in experimentation for its own sake, he nevertheless adopted certain aspects of serialism and minimalism, discovered the music of Olivier Messiaen, Witold Lutoslawski and Henri Dutilleux (to name just a few) and blended his findings into a uniform and distinctive style of his own.
In his view, any style, culture or period may supply useful material and enrich the grammar of music, and it is up to the composer to select and combine the elements most suited to his needs, in order to configure a widely accessible, yet personal and distinctive language.
He later continued to explore and write on other subjects, including autobiographical stories (Rogelio G.) and an essay on aspects of Argentina’s history up to 1982 (It Rains Red in Buenos Aires).
In addition, from 1995 to 2012 Micháns was a free-lance writer and editor for Podium Neerlandés,[22] a classical music program of the Dutch international broadcasting station Radio Nederland for Spanish speaking, mainly Latin American audiences.
