The gaucho pianist Miguel Proençaof international renowned, died on Friday (22), at 86 years. He was hospitalized since June at the São Vicente Hospital, in Gávea, Rio de Janeiro neighborhood. Proença had multiple organ failure.
Born in Quaraí, on the border with Uruguay, Miguel Proença won the world at the head of a piano. It was one of the great spokesmen of, Asia and North America. He taught in Germany and Rio de Janeiro and made a huge contribution to the Brazilian classical music.
“He was a wonderful pianist. He had a vision of Brazilian music when he didn’t have,” explains Radios Executive Manager at the Brazil Communication Company (EBC), Thiago Regotto.
“As he lived with part of the great composers, with Villa Lobos, with Camargo Guarnieri, Radamés Gnattali, he knew in source what the importance of Brazilian concert music was. And he recorded these composers and these recordings circulated the world. So, he was one of the pianists responsible for bringing Brazilian concert to abroad music,” he adds.
MEC Radio
Proença also produced and presented programs on Radio MEC between the 1970s and 1990s. In the vehicle, which currently is part of EBC’s public communication network, he was ahead of the classic music and musicians from Brazil, a program that has existed since 1958.
At Radio Mec, he also produced the series “The Art of the Piano”, where he told the story of and showed some of his recordings.
Miguel Proença gave an interview to journalist Roberto d’Avila on TV Brasil, in 2012. Photo: Ana Paula Oliveira Migliari
The pianist was not just ahead of the keys. Sometimes he exchanged the piano for the work tables, when he was president of the National Arts Foundation (Funarte) and municipal secretary of culture of Rio de Janeiro. He was also director of the Cecilia Meirelles room. “This vein in management was a practically unique, pioneering vein of composers who began to migrate to culture management. He did it for various moments of his career,” said Regotto.
Two passions
“The first contact with the song came when I first heard the sound of a piano, walking with my mother, coming from a mansion, in my hometown. It was passion at first sight,” said the musician, in an interview given to the Brazilian Piano Institute in 2016. He began studying piano at the age of 15 and, years later, began to divide his attention between music and the course of dentistry.
But it was another passion that motivated him to pursue a career on the piano and drop off the offices. He fell in love with the pianist Marly Lisboa. And encouraged by her, he deepened his studies on the piano and united the two great passions. He became a great pianist and married Marly. The marriage took place in Germany, where he had a scholarship guaranteed by that country’s government.
Homage
Miguel Proença will be properly remembered on the radio where he worked. Starting next Monday (25), Radio Mec will play its recordings and rescue some of its programs. “He is an artist who will leave his legacy for Brazilian culture, has its importance for the history of Rádio MEC and will always be remembered. We will honor it a lot next week,” said Thiago Regotto.
