21st WASBE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS, RIO DE JANEIRO – BRAZIL - SUITE GUANABARA for Wind Band by OSVALDO LACERDA (Brazil, 1927 – 2011)
[#379] Oct 26, 2026
Brazil | 1965 | Wind Band | Grade 4 | 22' | Suite
More info on the piece abmusica
Donated by Mark Customs, performance available for purchase.
Suite Guanabara by Brazilian composer Osvaldo Lacerda is our Composition of the Week.
The work belongs to the rich tradition of Brazilian concert music for wind band, in which composers draw inspiration from the country’s musical heritage while exploring the expressive and instrumental possibilities of the symphonic band.
Written in 1965, the suite comprises five movements, each evoking a distinct musical genre or tradition associated with Brazilian musical culture:
1. Dobrado; 2. Modinha; 3. Valsa; 4. Invocação; 5. Marcha Rancho.
Together, they reflect the diversity of Brazil’s musical landscape, bringing together the traditions of the concert band, lyrical song, dance and popular music.
The final two movements of Suíte Guanabara were performed on 24 July 2026, during the 21st WASBE International Conference in Rio de Janeiro, by the Banda Sinfônica do Conservatório de Tatuí, conducted by Marco Almeida Jr.
The work was commissioned and recorded by the Banda do Corpo de Bombeiros do Estado da Guanabara (The Firefighters' Band of the State of Guanabara), which later became part of the broader Rio de Janeiro military fire department.
This suite is dedicated to the founding of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Through this work, Lacerda offers a compelling example of how Brazilian musical identity can find a distinctive voice within the symphonic wind-band repertoire. It has a duration of 22 minutes.
Osvaldo Lacerda began studying music at the age of nine. His teachers included Ana Veloso de Rezende, Maria dos Anjos Oliveira Rocha and José Kliass for piano; Ernesto Kierski for harmony and counterpoint; and Olga Urbany de Ivanov for vocal technique. From 1952 to 1962, he studied composition with Camargo Guarnieri.
In 1963, he received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to study in the United States, where he received composition guidance from Vittorio Giannini in New York and Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. In 1965, he was one of the composers invited by Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to represent the country at the Inter-American Composers Seminar at Indiana University and the Third Inter-American Music Festival in Washington, D.C.
Among the composition competitions in which he participated, he won first prize at the Cidade de São Paulo National Composition Competition in 1962; the Competition for Symphonic Works organized by Radio MEC (Ministry of Education and Culture) in Rio de Janeiro, also in 1962; the Competition for Compositions and Arrangements for Four-Part Mixed Choir, organized by the Federal University of Paraíba in 1967; and the National Composition Competition for Wind Instruments, organized by the Professional Musicians’ Union of Rio de Janeiro in 1984.
He also received numerous other awards, including the 1962 Composer Revelation award from the Rio de Janeiro Association of Critics, as well as awards for Best Chamber Work and Best Symphonic Work from the São Paulo Association of Art Critics (APCA) on several occasions between 1970 and 1994.
He was the founder and artistic director of the Sociedade Paulista de Arte (São Paulo Society of Art) from 1949 to 1955, the Sociedade Pró-Música Brasileira (Society for Brazilian Music) from 1961 to 1966, and the Centro de Música Brasileira (Brazilian Music Centre). He served on the Municipal Music Commission of Santos from 1965 to 1967, chaired the São Paulo State Music Commission in 1967, and was a member of the National Sacred Music Commission from 1966 to 1970.
As a teacher, he taught at the Ouro Preto Winter Festival in 1968 and at the International Music Courses of Paraná from 1966 to 1970. He published several books on music theory and education, including Compendium of Elementary Music Theory, Exercises in Elementary Music Theory, Preparatory Course in Solfège and Musical Dictation, and Rules of Musical Notation.
His compositional output encompasses works for piano, voice and piano, choir, chamber ensembles, orchestra and wind band. His music has been published by various publishers in Brazil and abroad.
His orchestral works include Suíte Piratininga (1962), Overtures Nos. 1 (1972) and 2 (1982), Cromos for piano and orchestra (1992), and the Oboe Concerto (2004). His works for string orchestra include Ponteio No. 2 (1959), Four Modal Pieces (1975), the Piccolo Concerto (1980), and Andante (1988).
The Pequenos estudos (Little Studies) for strings are transcriptions made by the composer himself in 1987 of pieces originally written for piano. The first three were taken from the album Estudando piano (Studying Piano, 1972), while the fourth is based on No. 4 of the first series of Cromos (1971).
The studies were premiered in 1988 by the Associação Filarmônica Jovem de São Paulo (São Paulo Young Philharmonic Association), conducted by Abel Rocha.
Other works for winds include:
• Dobrado, Ponto e Maracatú
• Wind Quintet (2005)
• Three Brazilian Miniatures
• Variations and Fugue (1965)
