Opus (May 2012)
So Much to Think These People Have Given Us”: Brazilian Music Educators Traveling to the United States
Abstract
In the early 1940s, music educators traveled to the United States promoting Brazilian classical music and learning about the music education system in various cities of this North American country. This paper analyses the participation of Liddy Chiaffarelli Mignone, Francisco Mignone, Antonio Leal de Sá Pereira and Heitor Villa-Lobos in the VIII Biennial Congress of Music Teachers held in Milwaukee, USA in 1942. Possessing a privileged source of letters, notes and memoirs, reflections arising from their analysis reveals that these musicians, who were also music teachers, were placed in strategic diplomatic positions that brought together the United States and Brazil by means of musical and cultural exchange, while circulating pedagogical thinking of Brazilian music educators.
