Federico Smith

Federico Smith, born as Frederick Anthony Smith (1929–1977) was a Cuban composer born in the United States.

Biography

Composer and professor Federico Smith was born in Manhattan, New York City, on March 2, 1929. Smith began his musical studies in his country, and in 1950 travelled to Mexico where he lived for the next 12 years. There, Smith continued his studies and contributed as a music critic to the Política magazine, an important leftist Mexican publication. That participation suggests an ideological tendency that had already manifested in his involvement with American communist organizations and his studies of Marxist philosophy.

In 1962, Smith travelled to Havana, Cuba, invited by renowned Mexican artist and director Alfonso Arau with the purpose of collaborating in the reorganization project of the "Teatro Musical de La Habana", and in Cuba he stayed until his death in 1977. His interest for the utilization of mathematical models in analysis and musical composition exerted an important influence in the development of composition techniques such as aleatorism, stochastic and electro-acoustic music in Cuba. Matanzas 281 – Homage to the 281th anniversary of the City of Matanzas foundation – 1974 – Symphony orchestra, band, mixed choir, 4 narrators, batá drums and electro-acoustics.