Inocente Carreño

Inocente Carreño
(b Porlamar, 28 Dec 1919). Venezuelan composer. In 1932 he entered the Escuela de Música y Declamación (later the José Angel Lamas School of Music), Caracas.

In 1940 he began to study composition with Vicente Emilio Sojo, graduating in 1946. As a student and collaborator of Sojo, he contributed to the first professional music ensembles of the Venezuelan modern era. He was a guitarist with the Trio Caribe, promoting Venezuelan popular forms; played trumpet and horn, also conducting occasionally with the Venezuela SO; and was a singer and choral arranger with the Orfeón Lamas. He continued to compose and arrange popular genres as he began his career as an academic composer.

He taught harmony at the Lamas School (from 1945) and founded the Prudencio Esáa School of Music (1970). In 1954 his Margariteña, which was to become one of the emblematic compositions of the Venezuelan nationalist period, received its première at the First Latin American Music Festival of Caracas. Since then he has became one of the most prominent figures of the Venezuelan establishment, having held advisory positions in the Ministry of Culture and won many composition prizes, including the National Music Prize (1989).

Like other students of Sojo, Carreño was as a member of the nationalist school of Santa Capilla, or school of Caracas. With only occasional nods towards modernist techniques, he has maintained a nationalist aesthetic throughout his career. His style is characterized by neo-classical forms, effective post-Impressionist orchestration and enchanting melodic flair, often inspired by the folk melodies of the island of Margarita where he was born.