Biography

Hekel Tavares (Rio Largo, September 16, 1896 – Rio de Janeiro, August 8, 1969) was a Brazilian composer, conductor, and arranger. He studied piano with an aunt and, as a child, learned the harmonica and cavaquinho, but his greatest passion was popular music, especially that produced by challenge singers and reisados. He moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1921 and began studying orchestration with conductor J. Otaviano. Alongside Waldemar Henrique, Marcelo Tupinambá, and Henrique Vogeler, under the nationalist influence of the Semana de Arte Moderna (1922), he created a style of music that straddled the border between classical and popular. (Wikiped...Read More