San Juan, May 14, 2024 - The entire collection of Puerto Rican composer Raymond Torres Santos has been donated to the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, through an agreement signed by the renowned artist and the president of the institution, Dr. Rafael Ramírez Rivera.
The INTER Metropolitan Campus will house this collection, valued at approximately half a million dollars and containing items by the composer such as correspondence, scores, reels and magnetic cassettes for electronic compositions, original recordings of world premiere performances, photographic materials, concert programs, awards, certificates, scholarly musical writings, original poetry and lyrics, and teaching materials.
“For our University, it is an honor to receive such a valuable donation from one of the most versatile and acclaimed Puerto Rican composers of the international pentagram,” said Dr. Ramírez Rivera, adding: ”For the first university in the country to establish an academic department for the serious and profound study of popular music, it will be a pleasure to have this collection and put it at the service of the community of researchers, professors, students and music lovers.
For her part, the rector of the Metropolitan Campus, Professor Marilina L. Wayland, welcomed the collection to its new home and thanked the donor for his generosity, which will allow them to expand the collection of valuable items by Puerto Rican composers for the cultural enrichment of the community.
Dr. Raymond Torres Santos enjoys worldwide fame as a composer of orchestral, electronic and vocal music for concert, ballet, film, television, theater and radio, in multiple genres. Orchestras, choirs and instrumental groups from the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia have performed his music. His compositions have been heard in the voices of renowned artists such as Plácido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, Deborah Voigt, Ángela Gheoghiu, Ana María Martínez, Dianne Shuur and Vikki Carr.
Torres Santos has been guest conductor of prestigious orchestras such as the London Session Orchestra, Taipei Philharmonic, Cosmopolitan Symphony, Queens Symphony, Bronx Arts Ensemble Orchestra, Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, the Orquestas Sinfónica and Filarmónica de Puerto Rico, and the Orquesta Nacional de la República Dominicana. He has received countless awards, including the ASCAP Award, the Henry Mancini Award and the Frank Sinatra Award, for his classical, film and jazz compositions, respectively.
The famed composer holds a master's degree and a doctorate in Composition and Music Theory from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and then completed postdoctoral studies at Stanford and Harvard Universities. He continued his advanced studies in Europe, first at Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Germany and later at the University of Padova in Italy. His professors include the award-winning musicians and composers Amaury Veray, Héctor Campos-Parsi, Narciso Figueroa, Henri Lazarof and David Raksin, among others. He is a product of the Escuela Libre de Música, the Conservatory of Music and the University of Puerto Rico, where he also studied architecture.
He was director of the Commercial and Electronic Music Program at California State University San Bernardino, head of the Department of Music at UPR and Chancellor of the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico. He served as Dean of the College of the Arts at California State University, Long Beach (Los Angeles), where he currently serves as director and professor of music theory and composition.