Celebrating the return of Jaime Mendoza-Nava 's 'Antawara'

Jaime Mendoza-Nava at Rockefeller Center NY
circa 1948 while student at Julliard

One of the most important Bolivian classical composers of all times, Jaime Mendoza-Nava (1925 - 2005) became a prominent independent film composer based in Los Angeles, scoring and recording for Walt Disney Studios, UPA Animation, and countless motion pictures, documentaries, and commercials.

Mendoza-Nava's symphonic poem Antawara premiered at the Festival Luzmila Patiño Rodriguez in La Paz, Bolivia in 1952, winning the first prize for original symphonic composition. The composer, then only 26, conducted the Bolivian National Symphony Orchestra. Soon after the the work's second performance in July 1952, Mendoza-Nava left Bolivia for a musical conference in the USA, and political turmoil in Bolivia prevented his return. For the years afterwards, the composer lived in the USA and all sight of the score was lost. Luckily, decades later the composer’s son, located most of the instrumental parts amongst his father’s papers and began the process of restoring the work. But Menzoza-Nava had recorded the work in Germany in the 1960s and Andrés Estrada was able to use this recording to reconstruct the parts that were missing.

The title refers to a Native South American Quechua word, antawara, which represents and exalts the Sky and Clouds when the Sun rises and sets. 

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the work, the organization of Bolivian Musicians in the United States, BOMUSA, will debut a new recording and music video of the resurrected score on the group’s Facebook Live streaming program on Sunday, 27 March 2022, at 5 p.m. EST. Whilst the orchestral score of Antawara will be made available to orchestras from all around the world beginning March 27, at the composer’s memorial website, JaimeMendozaNava.net.