Juan Luis Guerra Seijas was born in Santo Domingo june 7 the year 1957, and had his first general education
in the schools of La Salle, Santa Teresita and San Juan Bautista.
From those studies, the young Juan Luis matriculated at the Universidad Autónoma
de Santo Domingo where, after his academic study, he studied the first year filosophy and literature.
But this boy with his guitar ready, follower of the new latinamerican music,
passionate listener of Pablo Milanés, Silvio Rodriguez and Facundo Cabral, matriculated
at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música de Santo Domingo and, for this winding carreerpath,
insecure and generally not lucrative, with conviction went ahaed.
From the Dominican Republic he travelled to Boston, United States, he studied music composition and orchestration at Berklee College.
In the academy of music in the same city his knowledge of harmony and orchestration increased.
In 1984 he formed the group 4.40 and, together with the excelent voices of Roger Zayaz-Bazán, Maridalia Hernández
and Mariela Mercado he recorded his first album. Soplando was the beginning of a large list of productions
wich contains Mudanza y acarreo, Mientras mas lo pienso tú, Ojalá que llueva café.
At the end of the year 1990 came Bachata rosa, and with that album Juan Luis and his band set themselves at the top
of popularity. For that album, in 1991, they received a Grammy in the category of best tropical act,
an award never before obtained by a Dominican.
Millions of copys of the album were sold and, with their appearances it was full house everywhere.
In 1993 Juan Luis lanced his sixth album titeled Areito.
After this he brought out Fogaraté, and in 1995, Grandes éxitos, a production which compiled of eighteen of his
most pupular songs till that time.
In 1998, after a few years of working in studios on recordings and screenplays,
absorbed as he was in starting a radiostation and a televisionbroadcasting station,
Juan Luis returned to the lists, with the same clamorous triumphs,
he set himself once again at the topranks of the recordselling lists,
thanks to his production Ni es lo mismo ni es igual.
His carreer is acknowledged in his native country, where he has been awarded with several rewards,
among which are: El Soberano, seat of honor de los premios Casandra, la Universidad Autónoma de
Santo Domingo awarded him with "el Titulo de Profesor Honorifico" and he was declared Prominent Son
of his native city.
But in addition to all these triumphs and "above any reason", his works are al lot more than his transitory hits,
his musical works live independent from the freaks of fashion and the commercial manipulations.
Stuck in the center of Dominican culture, in the heart of the american continents culture, the musical works of Juan Luis Guerra are,
for the new generations, of vital importance to acknowledge.
To acknowledge for what he is, in art, a genuine representative of the roots of his people,
at the same time, the most prominent, modern and universal of all the composers.
This text is taken from "Los cien músicos del siglo" and translated, published in 2000 by "Cañabrava", in Santo Domingo and written by "el Lic. Antonio Gómez Sotolongo"
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