Luis Rivera — Luis Armando Rivera González, born in San Fernando de Monte Cristi on 22 June 1901, died in Santo Domingo on 16 September 1986 — was a Dominican violinist, pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. He wrote the «Rapsodia dominicana n.º 1» and most of the songs remembered in the voice of his wife, Casandra Damirón, and in 1985 received the first El Soberano, the highest honour of the awards named after her.

Monte Cristi and Santiago

His father, José Luis Rivera, taught him piano and violin. As a teenager he played among the violins of the «Centro Lírico Ildefonso Arté» in Santiago and in the small ensembles that accompanied silent films.

Havana and Mexico

In 1930 he appeared with the «Trío México Lindo», then on tour in the country, and soon afterwards left for Cuba, where he sat among the first violins of the Havana Philharmonic under its founder, the Spanish conductor Pedro San Juan. He published his first songbook in 1932, and his gift as an orchestrator led to arrangements of works by Ernesto Lecuona. In Mexico he wrote songs such as «Jugando y llorando» and premiered the musical revue «Pa’ L’Habana me voy».

Bands, radio and the «San José»

Back in the Dominican Republic he led the orchestra at the Club Antillas, where Casandra Damirón first sang with him. In 1942 he was appointed director of the «Banda de Música de la Policía Nacional» and violin teacher at the Liceo Municipal, and he accompanied singers on the piano on the «Hora Selecta» of the radio station «HIG». In 1945 he became artistic director of «La Voz del Yuna», in Bonao, where he conducted the «Súper Orquesta San José», and he taught solfège and harmony at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música.

Songs for Casandra

He married Casandra Damirón in 1948, and for her he wrote boleros and folk pieces alike: «Reina», «Rosas para ti», «Vida», «Llegaste», «Noche tropical», «Eres todo en mi vida» and «Por qué dudas», which she sang with the «Súper Orquesta San José», as well as salves, tumbas and mangulinas. The tenor Arístides Incháustegui and the soprano Ivonne Haza also sang his songs.

The concert works

His catalogue runs to more than twenty romantic songs and twenty-five folk songs, dances for piano, the «Poema indio» for orchestra with baritone and narrator, and the «Rapsodia dominicana n.º 1» for piano and orchestra, alongside pieces such as «Sierra de Bahoruco», «Danza en merengue», «Fiesta de palos», «Siñá Anacleta» and «Merengueando».

Recognition

He was made a knight of the Order of Duarte, Sánchez and Mella and of the Order of Christopher Columbus. At the first «Premios Casandra», on 15 April 1985 — two years after his wife’s death — he received El Soberano, the ceremony’s highest award, the first time it was given. In 2014 the «Compañía Lírica Nacional» paid tribute to him with a concert of his songs at the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Legacy

Luis Rivera moved between the concert hall, the military band and the dance orchestra, and his work joined the two: a classically trained violinist who put Dominican folk forms into orchestral writing and wrote boleros that remain among the most remembered of his time.