Ángel Tavira

Ángel Tavira Maldonado (July 3, 1924 – June 30, 2008) was a Mexican composer, musician and violinist of son calentano. He was awarded the Best Actor Award on the 2006 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section for his role in the movie The Violin.

Biography Ángel Tavira Maldonado was born in the town of Corral Falso in the municipality of Ajuchitlán del Progreso, Guerrero, which lies in the region known as Tierra Caliente. He was the only child of J. Isabel Maldonado Tavira and Anita Tavira López, and grandson of Juan Bartolo Tavira, a composer and performer of son, gustos, Indias, malagueñas, rhymes and coplas, who inspired and taught him the love for local traditional music. Being born in a family traditionally related with music, he was successively encouraged by his uncles and cousins Félix, José Guadalupe Lupito, and Sósimo Tavira López in learning and playing music. When he was six years old, he began to play four instruments by ear training: saxophone, bass, guitar and violin, and later he went to take courses in classical, semi-classical and romantic music. When he was 60 years old he enrolled at the Music Conservatory of Morelia to study music notation with the purpose of recovering the traditional music of his region.

In 1988, Tavira was introduced to politics when he was selected as Federal Substitute Deputy for the candidacy of Félix Salgado Macedonio. Ángel Tavira married Rafaela Martínez with whom he had ten children: Ma de los Ángeles, Elizabeth, Rafaela, Ma. Eugenia, Carlos, Felix, Ángel, Guadalupe, Salvador and Alejandro

With no studies or experience in acting he participated in 2005 in the movie El violín, directed by Francisco Vargas Quevedo, in the role of don Plutarco Hidalgo, a musician and farmer that participates in a guerrilla that plans to revolt against its own government, Tavira died of kidney complications on June 30, 2008.