Born in Teruel on May 19, 1933, he has died at the age of 87
The Aragonese composer Antón García Abril, one of the most prominent authors of contemporary music, died this Wednesday in Madrid at the age of 87, as this newspaper has learned.
For García Abril, born in Teruel on May 19, 1933, music was a language, regardless of its form or genre, and “when it is well written”, there is a moment when it becomes a pure image.
His long professional career includes the composition of works for orchestras, cantatas, concerts, chamber music, and more than 200 soundtracks for films such as ‘Los Santos inocentes’, ‘El Crime de Cuenca’, Sor Citroën) and tunes for television series like ‘The Man and the Earth’, ‘Golden Rings’ or ‘Fortunata and Jacinta’.
For a time his cinematographic work had a marked commercial character , also for other directors such as Mariano Ozores, José María Forqué or José Luis Sáenz de Heredia. His creations were framed in the so-called ‘dabadaísmo’, an accompaniment to comedies that tried to offer an optimistic image of Franco’s Spain. At the end of the 70s, García Abril changed his register in films by Mario Camus or Pilar Miró.
Among others, he holds the title of academic from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid and has been awarded the National Music Prize (1993), the Guerrero Foundation for Spanish Music Prize (1993), and the Music Prize in various editions (1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002), granted by the General Society of Authors and Editors (SGAE) and the Association of Interpreters and Executives (AIE).
He has also received the gold medal for Merit in Fine Arts (1998); the Orfeón Donostiarra Award from the University of the Basque Country (2001) for musical creation; the Aragon Prize (2003); honorary doctorate from the Complutense University of Madrid; and the Great Cross of Alfonso X El Sabio, among others.
Author of more than 200 soundtracks for the cinema -although he will always be remembered for the headline music of the program ‘El hombre y la tierra’-, Antón García Abril received on October 22, 2014, the Gold Medal of the Academy of Cinema for a job he gave up more than 20 years ago.