José Maurício Nunes Garcia, a Brazilian classical composer, was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on September 20, 1767, and died in the same city on April 18, 1830. He was one of the greatest composers of the Classicism in the Americas.
Son of mulattoes, Nunes Garcia lost his father at an early age, and his mother perceived that her son had an inclination for becoming a musician and, for this reason, improved her work to allow him to continue his musical studies.
Nunes Garcia became a priest and, when prince John VI of Portugal came to Rio de Janeiro with his 15,000 people, Nunes Garcia was appointed to be the master of the royal chapel. He both sang and played the harpsichord, performing his compositions and those of other composers like Domenico Cimarosa and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was a very prestigious musician in the royal court of John VI.
His musical style was strongly influenced by the Austrian composers of that time, like Mozart and Haydn. Today, some 240 musical pieces written by Nunes Garcia survive, and at least 170 others are known to have been lost [1]. Most of his compositions are sacred pieces, but he wrote also some secular pieces, including the opera Le Due Gemelle and the Tempest Symphony. (Hide extended text)...(Read all) Source : Wikipedia