Eunice Katunda

Eunice Katunda (whose surname was also spelled "Catunda") was one of the most active musicians in the Brazilian music scene of the mid-20th century. Her identity as a musician encompassed those of pianist, composer, conductor, arranger, and radio program producer. Eunice do Monte Lima began her musical training at the age of 5 with Mima Oswald.

Among her piano teachers were: Mima Oswald, Branca Bilhar, Oscar Guanabarino, Marieta Lion, and Camargo Guarnieri. We highlight the presence of composers (Bilhar, Guarnieri) in Katunda's piano instruction and the probable impact of this training on her development. The figure of a female composer was also present from the beginning of her career – Katunda played Branca Bilhar's "Bailado Indígena" in her first solo piano recital on October 22, 1927, at the National Institute of Music in Rio de Janeiro. She married mathematician Omar Catunda in 1934, at the age of 18, and moved to São Paulo shortly afterwards.

In 1941, at the São Paulo Municipal Theater, she was the soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, conducted by Camargo Guarnieri, and the following year she began her studies with the composer. In 1943, she wrote her first work for piano: Variations on a Popular Theme. With her identity as a concert pianist established, she played a series of concerts in Argentina in 1944, for which she received a letter of recommendation from Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959).

Even in the programs of these concerts, the musician's commitment to the dissemination of contemporary Brazilian music is evident, having performed works by Villa-Lobos, Oscar Lorenzo Fernández (1897-1948), Camargo Guarnieri, and herself. The interpretation of works by Brazilian composers intensified in the subsequent period.

In 1946, she moved with her family to Rio de Janeiro and, from 1947 onwards, became intensely involved in the activities of the Música Viva Group, led by Hans-Joachim Koellreutter (1915-2005). Katunda played practically every week on PRA-2, the Ministry of Education Radio, on the program entitled "Música Viva," directed by Koellreutter, and during this period became the group's official pianist. This important initiative of the Música Viva group with its radio program served as an incentive and a vehicle for disseminating the work of young composers, including Katunda herself.

With a focus on contemporary music, several programs were dedicated to the avant-garde repertoire of the time, a comprehensive repertoire with a majority of compositions previously unreleased in Brazil. On July 31, 1948, he traveled to Europe with colleagues and his mentor Koellreutter to attend an International Conducting Course at the Venice Biennale, where he stayed for nine months and came into contact with musicians such as Hermann Scherchen (1891-1966), Bruno Maderna (1920-1973), and Luigi Nono (1924-1990).

Also in 1948, he gave the first Italian performance of Paul Hindemith's (1895-1963) Ludus Tonalis and a recital dedicated to Brazilian music promoted by Il Diapason, both at the Teatro Piccolo in Milan. In December of the same year, his work Cantos à Morte (1946) was conducted by Scherchen and broadcast on Swiss Radio.

After returning to Brazil in April 1949, he worked predominantly in São Paulo. Among her activities, the following stand out: teaching introductory music courses at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (1951-52) in a pioneering initiative; creating and directing a weekly program on Rádio Nacional de São Paulo entitled Musical Lloyd (1955-56); working as a pianist for Rádio Gazeta (1957-58), in addition to working as a composer and arranger throughout this period. In 1958, for her work with Rádio Gazeta, she received the Radiolândia award for best pianist working on Brazilian radio stations.

The 1960s were marked by intense activity as an instrumentalist and by changes in her personal life. During this period, she undertook two tours to the United States, performing at Carnegie Recital Hall. In 1964, she separated from Omar Catunda. As a result, she changed the "C" in Catunda to a "K" to dissociate her surname from her ex-husband.

In the following decades, Katunda continued to work as a teacher, composer, and pianist, having taught courses at the University of Brasília (DF) and in the Contemporary Music courses in São João Del Rei (MG).

Researcher Carlos Kater organized a catalog of her compositions, including various pieces for solo piano and other ensembles, in *Eunice Katunda: Brazilian Musician*, published by Annablume (2001). Her production spans a period of forty years, between 1943 and 1983, and includes tonal, modal, free atonal, and dodecaphonic works.

Within Katunda's piano works, several compositions present explicit or implicit references to folkloric material, indicative of her affinity with the principles of the nationalist school at different periods of her career. Among them are Variations on a Popular Theme (1943), Folkloric Studies (1952), Obstinate Troubadour (1958), Praise Sonata (1960) and Piracicaba Serenade (1956). Other works for solo piano include the Sonatina (1946), Four Epigraphs (1948), Lorca Moment (1957), Four Lorca Moments (1958), Serenade in A (1967), Five Serenades (ca. 1967), Three Moments in New York (1969), Threnody to the Dead Poet (1972), Poems for Carla (1977), Anima Expression (1979), in Songs of Macunaíma (ca. 1983). Argentine pianist Beatriz Balzi (1936-2001) recorded her 2 Folkloric Studies (1952) in the Latin American Composers CD series, volume 1. Researcher Carlos Kater compiled the complete catalog of Katunda's works in 2001.

Eunice Katunda passed away on August 3, 1990, at the home of her son Igor Katunda, in São José dos Campos (SP).