Miguel Bernal Jimenez (1910-1956)

Mexican composer. He was a choirboy, who later went to Rome and studied composition and musicology under Casimini. He graduated from the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra in the organ, composition and the Gregorian chant in 1933. Upon graduation he returned to his home town in Mexico and taught at the Escuela Superior de Musica Sagrada and founded the monthly Schola cantorum which he edited until 1953. He toured Mexico and the US as a concert organist, conductor of chorus, and lecturer. He taught at a university in New Orleans until his death in 1954. His stage works include: Tata Vasco, an opera which commemorated the arrival of Vasco de Quiroga, the first bishop of Michoacan; Timgambato, the ballet paying tribute to Mexican poet Juana Ines de la Cruz. His music was considered refined for a conservative Mexican of his age group.