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Aretz, Isabel
article url: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com:80/subscriber/article/grove/music/01214

Aretz (de Ramn y Rivera), Isabel

(b Buenos Aires, 13 April 1913). Venezuelan-Argentine ethnomusicologist, folklorist and composer, wife of LUIS FELIPE RAMN Y RIVERA. She studied the piano under Rafael Gonzlez (192331) and composition with Athos Palma (192833) at the Buenos Aires National Conservatory of Music, instrumentation with Villa-Lobos in Brazil (1937), anthropology (193840) and, with Carlos Vega, folklore and musicology (193844) at the Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Buenos Aires. She took the doctorate in musicology in 1967 at the Argentine Catholic University with a dissertation on Argentine folk music. She was an associate member of the Instituto Argentino de Musicologa from 1938 to 1950. After working as the first professor of ethnomusicology at the Escuela Nacional de Danzas de Argentina (195052) she moved to Caracas, Venezuela, where she has held appointments as research fellow in folklore and ethnomusicology at the Instituto Nacional de Folklore de Venezuela (195365), head of the folklore department of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes (196570) and founder-director of the Instituto Interamericano de Etnomusicologa y Folklore (197185). In 1986 she became the president of the Fundacin Internacional de Etnomusicologa y Folklore (FINIDEF) and in 1989 the director of the Centro para las Culturas Populares y Tradicionales (CCPYT), both in Caracas. She also presided over the newly established Fundacon de Etnomusicolog y Folklore (FUNDEF), from 1991 to 1995. In 1996 she returned to Argentina and took over as the director of the Fundacin Internacional de Etnomusicologa y Folklore de Argentina in Buenos Aires. Isabel Aretz is a leading authority on South American folk music. With her husband she has travelled extensively throughout Hispanic America, collecting the folk music of Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Mexico, and has published numerous important analytical and descriptive accounts of their research. Her many awards and fellowships, for both scholarly work and composition, include a scholarship from the Argentine National Commission of Culture (19413), a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship (19667), the Polifona prize of Buenos Aires (1952) and the first prize in Caracas (1972) for Yekuana (Yanoama), a work for orchestra, voices and tape. She won the Robert Stevenson Prize (199091) for her book Msica de los aborgenes de Venezuela, which also received an Honor Diploma (1993) from the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Music Council (CIDEM), and the prestigious international grand prize Gabriel Mistral of the OAS (1992). She has been an active member of many national and international organizations, a board member and delegate of the IFMC and ICTM and a council member of the Society for Ethnomusicology. As a composer Aretz has cultivated a highly personal nationalist style, based on a combination of indigenous or Afro-Hispanic folk traditions with avant-garde European elements, including electronic techniques.

Writings
Msica tradicional argentina: Tucumn, historia y folklore (Buenos Aires, 1946) El folklore musical argentino (Buenos Aires, 1952)

Musicas pentatnicas en Sudamerica, Archivos venezolanos de folklore, i (1952), 283309 Costumbres tradicionales argentinas (Buenos Aires, 1954) Manual de folklore venezolano (Caracas, 1957, 6/1980) with M. Cardona, L.F. Ramn y Rivera and G.L. Carrera: Panorama del folklore venezolano (Caracas, 1959) ed., with L.F. Ramn y Rivera: Folklore tachirense (Caracas, 19613) with L.F. Ramn y Rivera: Cantos navideos en el folklore venezolano (Caracas, 1962) ed., with A. Lloyd: Folk Songs of the Americas (London, 1965) Races europeas de la msica folklrica de Venezuela: el aporte indgena, Music in the Americas: Bloomington, IN, 1965, 717 Instrumentos musicales de Venezuela (Cuman, 1967) La artesana folklrica en Venezuela (Caracas, 1967, 2/1979) Msica tradicional argentina: La Rioja (diss., Catholic U., Buenos Aires, 1967) The Polyphonic Chant in South America, JIFMC, xix (1967), 4953 El folklore musical de Venezuela, RMC, nos.1045 (1968), 5382 Cantos araucanos de mujeres, Revista venezolana de folklore, 2nd ser., no.3 (1970), 73104 El tamunangue (Barquisimeto, 1970) El traje en Venezuela (Caracas, 1972, 2/1977) ed.: Amica Latina en su msica (Mexico City, 1977) Msica tradicional de La Rioja (Caracas, 1978) Instrumentos musicales para una Orquesta Latinoamericana (Caracas, 1983) Sntesis de la etnomsica en Amrica Latina (Caracas, 1983) Historia de la etnomusicologa en Amrica Latina: desde la poca precolombina hasta nuestros das (Caracas, 1991) Msica de los aborgenes de Venezuela (Caracas, 1991) La etnomsica venezolana del siglo XX (Mrida, Venezuela, 1996) Literatura folklrica tachirense: Cuentos de Pedro Rimales (Caracas, 1996)

Copyright Oxford University Press 2007 2010.

Bibliography
GroveW (G. Bhague) [incl. further list of works] Compositores de Amrica/Composers of the Americas, ed. Pan American Union, xvii (Washington DC, 1971), 27

Gerard Bhague