Júlio Medaglia

Internationally awarded composer of more than 100 film soundtracks, and also an important inspiration for the Tropicalia movement, Júlio Medaglia is an active jazz and MPB arranger as well, working in several countries. He began his musical studies with Hans Joachim Koellreutter. In 1961, invited by the German government, Medaglia moved to Europe and studied symphonic conducting at the Freiburg Music College. Together with Rogério Duprat and Damiano Cozzella, Júlio Medaglia studied with Pierre Boulez, in France, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, in Germany -- in the same class as Frank Zappa. In 1963, together with composers Régis Duprat, Rogério Duprat, Sandino Hohagem, Damiano Cozzella, Willy Correia de Oliveira, Gilberto Mendes, and Olivier Toni, all of whom were deeply involved with modern experimentations in avant-garde music, Júlio Medaglia launched the Música Nova manifest in São Paulo. The document proposed, among other things, an understanding of art as part of the cultural industry, an abolition of nostalgia, and the necessity of engaged art in people's lives. The music produced within the movement remains modern after almost four decades. In 1965, Medaglia completed his studies in Germany, obtaining his master's degree. Also, he was an assistant for Sir John Barbirolli (1899-1970). In 1966, he returned to Brazil and began a prolific career as a composer for theater and cinema. As a consultant for the production team of TV Record's III FMPB (Teatro Paramount, October 1967), he was the one who introduced Rogério Duprat to Gilberto Gil, which would represent a drastic change for the Tropicalia movement, then just in gestation. The selection of the songs for the three eliminatory phases of the festival was done at Medaglia's home. Medaglia had begun to write the arrangement for Gil's "Domingo No Parque," but as he was invited to be at the festival's jury, he had to interrupt the work. In the same year (1967), he wrote the arrangements (and devised incidental happenings recorded for that album, such as the on-the-spot dialog in which the percussionist Dirceu improvises a funny and irreverent description of Cabral's arrival in Brazil) for Caetano Veloso's first solo album, Caetano Veloso, together with Damiano Cozzella and Sandino Hohagen. Also, Medaglia presented to the musicians another important reference for Tropicalia, the concrete poet Augusto de Campos. The Tropicalia manifesto launched by Nelson Motta had Medaglia's name among the movement's members. In 1968, Medaglia was member of the jury of TV Record's IV FMPB, which awarded first place to "São Paulo, Meu Amor" (Tom Zé), along with other Tropicalia songs, which had an important effect over the movement. In that year, he was invited by Gunter Schuller to go to the U.S. In 1970, he went back to Germany, where he produced more than 100 soundtracks for TV productions there. In that year, he recovered, conducted, and recorded the score of "Missa à São Paulo," composed in 1750 by Calixto and Anchieta Arzão. As a conductor, Júlio Medaglia worked in that period for several European orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic. In 1974, he returned to Brazil, composing more than 100 soundtracks for TV, cinema, and theater, some of which were awarded at several festivals (Gramado RS, Fortaleza CE, and Brasília DF). In June 1995, he conducted the opera Lídia de Oxum, and in September conducted Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. Also, Medaglia conducted the National Opera of Sofia, Bulgaria, in the opera Aida (Giuseppe Verdi, 1871). In the next year, he conducted the same company during the centennial commemorations of the death of the eminent Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896). On September 20, 1997, Medaglia was appointed as conductor of the Amazonas Filarmônica. On April 24, 1998, he went to Germany to supervise the recordings of seven of his pieces for the brass band of the Orquestra Filarmônica de Berlin. In June 1999, he was fired, due to politics, from the Amazonas Filarmônica. In the same month, Medaglia was appointed director of São Paulo's Teatro Municipal. In April 2000, he conducted the Orquestra Sinfonia Cultura during the commemorations of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil. ~ Alvaro Neder