Eleazar de Carvalho

Eleazar de Carvalho
Background information
Born	(1912-06-28)June 28, 1912 Iguatu, Ceará, Brazil
Died	September 12, 1996(1996-09-12) (aged 84) São Paulo, Brazil
Genres	Classical
Occupation(s)	Conductor, pedagogue

Eleazar de Carvalho (28 June 1912, Iguatu, Ceará – 12 September 1996, São Paulo) was a Brazilian conductor and composer.

Biography

De Carvalho's parents were Manuel Alfonso de Carvalho and Dalila Mendonça. He studied in the United States with Sergei Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center, and later became a conducting assistant to Koussevitzky, at the same time as Leonard Bernstein. He received a Ph.D. in music from Washington State University in 1963.

In Brazil, de Carvalho held principal conducting positions with the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira of Rio de Janeiro, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Orquestra Sinfônica do Recife, Orquestra Sinfônica da Paraiba and also with the Orquestra Sinfônica de Porto Alegre. In the United States, his major post was as music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), from 1963 to 1968. During his Saint Louis tenure, he was noted as a champion of contemporary music. He also conducted the first SLSO performances of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa solemnis, and the Grande messe des morts of Hector Berlioz.

De Carvalho taught at Hofstra University and the Juilliard School of Music. In 1987, he joined the music faculty of Yale University as a professor and as conductor-in-residence. He became emeritus at Yale in 1994. De Carvalho was a teacher to such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Gustav Meier, Seiji Ozawa, Jose Serebrier, and David Zinman.

De Carvalho was married to Jocy de Oliveira, and had a son, Eleazar de Carvalho Filho, now a renowned economist. Later, he remarried, to Sonia Muniz de Carvalho. They had a son, Sergei and a daughter, Claudia.