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Born in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Manuel Maria Ponce moved with his family to the city of Aguascalientes only a few weeks after his birth and lived there until he was 15 years old.
The tiny village Fresnillo in the Mexican state Zacatecas was the birthplace of Manuel Ponce on December 8, 1882. Soon thereafter the family moved to the city Aguascalientes where Ponce grew up and resided until the age of 15 years.
Manuel María Ponce Cuéllar was born in the mining town of Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Mexico on 8 December 1882. Fresnillo was only a temporary residence for the family, and two months later the Ponce Cuéllar returned back to their original small village of Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes.
Manuel Ponce was born in Zacatecas, Mexico. He spent his early career composing, conducting, teaching, and writing music criticism in Mexico. He moved to Paris in the 1920s and after studying with the French composer Paul Dukas , Ponce abandoned the genteel salon-music style then prevalent in Mexico, and began applying an impressionistic idiom ...
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Early years
Born in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Ponce moved with his family to the city of Aguascalientesonly a few weeks after his birth and lived there until he was 15 years old. He was famous for being a "musical prodigy"; according to his biographers, he was barely four years of age when, after having listened to the piano classes received by his sister, Josefina, he sat in front of the instrument and interpreted one of the pieces that he had heard. Immediately, his parents had him receive classes in piano...
Traveling years
In 1901 Ponce entered the National Conservatory of Music, already with a certain prestige as a pianist and composer. There he remained until 1903, the year in which he returned to the city of Aguascalientes. This was only the beginning of his travels. In 1904 he traveled to Italy for advanced musical studies at the School of Bologna. He studied in Germany as a pupil of Martin Krause at the Stern conservatoryin Berlin between 1906 and 1908.
Years at the National Conservatory
After his years abroad, Ponce returned to Mexico to teach piano and music history at the National Conservatory of Music from 1909 to 1915 and from 1917 to 1922. He spent the intervening years of 1915 to 1917 in Havana, Cuba. In 1912 he composed his most famous work "Estrellita" (little star), which is not a normal love song, as is usually thought, but "Nostalgia Viva" (live nostalgia). That same year, Ponce gave in the "Arbeau Theater" a memorable concert of Mexican popular music which, thoug...
Ponce wrote music for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra. His piano and guitar works outnumber those dedicated to other solo instruments within the set of pieces we know.
Corazón Otero: Manuel M. Ponce y la guitarra, Mexico 1980. First published in English by Musical New Services Limited, UK in 1983, 1994 ISBN 0-933224-84-2"Andrés Segovia, Manuel M. Ponce, Miguel Alcázar, Peter Segal: "The Segovia - Ponce Letters", Columbus, OH, Editions Orphée, 1989 ISBN 0-936186-29-1Ricardo Miranda Pérez, Grove Music OnlineManuel Ponce and the Suite in A minor: Its Historical Significance and an Examination of Existing Editions (2005) by Kevin R. MandervillePonce's Baroque Pastiches, by Peter Kun Frary, Professor of Music - University of HawaiiManuel formally studied music in Mexico City. Then went to Europe to study in Germany where he was encouraged to incorporate his country’s folk music in his works, which he did to great success. His life changed one night when he heard classical guitarist Andres Segovia in concert.
He studied in Germany as a pupil of Martin Krause at the Stern conservatory in Berlin between 1906 and 1908. After his years abroad, Ponce returned to Mexico to teach piano and music history at the National Conservatory of Music from 1909 to 1915 and from 1917 to 1922.
