guitarist, composer, conductor

Leo Brouwer was born in Havana in 1939, where he studied guitar (with Isaac Nicola, a pupil of Emilio Pujol), percussion and conducting. He is self-taught in composition.
When already launched on a concert career as a guitarist, he attended the Julliard School of Music and Hartford University (USA).

From 1961 he has been director of the music department of the Cuban Film Institute and professor of composition at the Conservatory of Havana.

He has also worked widely as a conductor, while as a composer and guitarist he has taken part in the main international festivals, such as Aldeburgh, Avignon, Edinburgh, Liège, Paris, Berlin, Royan, Spoleto and Strasbourg. His guitar works, for which there is an ample discography, are in the repertory of the world's most distinguished soloists.

The orchestras he has conducted include the Berlin Philharmonic, Scottish National, BBC Symphony, RAI (Rome) and Toronto Symphony.

An honorary member of UNESCO's music commission, he is at present regular conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba and principal conductor of the Orchestra of Cordoba (Spain).