Luis Szarán (born 24 September 1953) is a Paraguayan musician, orchestra director, composer and musical researcher; since 2002, founder and director of the social and community integration program "Sounds of the Earth", which created the school of music where began the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura.
Since 1978, he has been conducting the Symphony Orchestra of the City of Asunción (OSCA, in Spanish means "Orquesta Sinfónica de la Ciudad de Asunción"), which he has held since 1990; and the Phylomusica Orchestra of Asunción. He has also directed plays of his own in numerous international festivals and has obtained the National Award of Music, given by the National Parliament in 1997.
Szarán was born in Encarnación, Itapúa, in Paraguay, on 24 September 1953. He studied music with the teacher José Luis Miranda in Asunción.
In 1975 Szarán obtained a scholarship to master his studies in Italy, given by the Italian government. He studied orchestra direction in the Santa Cecilia Conservatory, in Rome. His teachers were Massimo Pradella, Piero Bellugi and Mario Migliardi. Later on, he took courses of improvement in the Colón Theater, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with teacher Hans Swarowsky. In 1977 he continued his education in Chigiana de Sierra Academy and the Instituto Francesco Canneti de Vicenza.
Szarán's work have been published in books. Some of his work is about Native-American music and Paraguayan popular music; also transcriptions of the music in the Jesuit Missions. Since 1989, he had been the director of the Paraguayan Area for the Spanish Hispanic-American Encyclopedic Dictionary of Music, organized by the Author General Society of Spain, SGAE.
Szarán's compositions have been presented at the Festival de Música Contemporánea de Ouro Preto in Brazil, in 1975 and 1978; Encuentro de Compositores de Latinoamérica in Santiago, Chile 1988 and 1989, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in 1989, and in Buenos Aires in 1990. His piece "Variaciones en Puntas" for winds quintet was presented in the Youth International Festival of Beyreuth, Germany during the closing concert. It was also presented in the São Paulo's Musica Nova Festival.
On 6 December 2016, at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (France), Szarán received the recognition "Artist for Peace of UNESCO" for the Orchestra H2O Sounds of the Earth.
On 4 May 2017, the Symphony Orchestra of the City of Asuncion (OSCA) presented at the Municipal Theater of Asunción the world premiere of the oratorio "The bronze arch", which Szarán composed 40 years ago, with a text by the journalist Jesus Ruiz Nestosa.
On 6 October 2017, the label Klanglogo publishes the album "Jungle Baroque" by Szarán, as director of the orchestra "Sounds of Paraquaria".
This project is directed towards the kids and young people, and was created by Szarán, who through the music schools, bands and cultural associations, gives access to musical education to 3.000 people of scarce resources, in 72 communities in the interior of the country.
The program is inspired in the concept of "education for the art"; it was initiated in 2002 with the support of the AVINA Foundation, expanding it with alliances with other organizations like; the National Parliament, FONDEC, ITAIPU Bi-National, Asuncion's Philharmonic Society, the Embassies of Germany, United States, France and Italy, Partners of the Americans (Paraguay-Kansas), Culture Direction of Asunción Municipality and others. More than 100 organizations, municipalities, business and sponsors are involved.
In 2005, Szarán was awarded with the Skoll Awards for The Social Entrepreneurships, given by the Skoll Foundation of California (USA). This award made possible to expand the project to other sector of society in need. The same year Sounds from my land was included as a program of Fundación Tierranuestra.
On 16 May 2011, Szarán conducted the Paraguayan Bicentennial Chamber Orchestra, a musical ensemble brought together to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Paraguay. The orchestra comprised leading members of the City of Asunción Symphony Orchestra, The National Symphony Orchestra, plus some young musicians from the Sounds of the Earth Project. The program offered an overview of Paraguay's compositions from the 19th century to the present, and included works in a variety of styles. The celebrations were held at Church House, near Westminster Abbey, London, and the event was hosted by Miguel Solano-Lopez, Ambassador representing Paraguay in London.