Camargo Guarnieri was a Brazilian composer and conductor from the 20th century. He was one of the most important composers from Brazil, and his extensive worklist contains several concertos, six symphonies, and over 200 songs. He was born in Tietê, São Paulo in 1907, and he started studying music when he was ten years old. His father was a Sicilian immigrant who loved classical music and named each of his children after great composers. At birth, Guarnieri's first name was Mozart, but he later decided that it was too pretentious of a name for a musician and started to use his middle name, Camargo. His brothers' first names were Verdi, Bellini, and Rossine [sic]. As a teenager, Guarnieri took piano lessons from Ernani Braga and Antonio de Sá Pereira, and he studied composition with Lamberto Baldi at the São Paulo Musical and Theater Conservatory. He also performed in cafés and silent movie theaters to help support his family. In 1927, he became employed by the conservatory to teach piano, and in the following year, he composed the popular piano pieces Canção sertaneja and Dansa brasileira. He produced several works in the 1930s, including songs, chamber and orchestral works, and an opera. Guarnieri became the conductor of the Coral Paulistano in 1936, and in 1938, he received a fellowship from the Council of Artistic Orientation that allowed for him to continue his education in Paris. There, he studied conducting with Franz Ruhlmann, composition with Charles Koechlin, and he also received some instruction from Nadia Boulanger. The outbreak of World War II curtailed his time in France, and he returned to Brazil with a renewed sense of inspiration. He composed his Violin Concerto No. 1 in 1942, which was the first of many large-scale works. Other important pieces from this period include two symphonies, Piano Concerto No. 2, and String Quartet No. 2. In the mid-1940s he travelled to the United States to conduct his works with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and he was appointed conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. He stayed very active as a composer through the 1950s, and in 1960, he was appointed director of the São Paulo Conservatory. He also started teaching composition at the Santos Conservatory in 1964, and some of his more prominent students included Osvaldo Lacerda, Almeida Prado, and Aylton Escobar. He founded the University of São Paulo String Orchestra in 1976 and served as the director until 1992. Guarnieri died in São Paulo in 1993 at 85 years old. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi