José Serebrier, who is today's most frequently-recorded conductor, established himself as a significant composer as far back as the 1950s. Serebrier's most recent work, Symphony No. 3 for string orchestra and soprano vocalise, has been released on Naxos along with a number of his other works for strings (see reviews). The Symphony No. 3, "Symphonie Mystique", was released on a new Naxos DVD in June 2008, performed live at Chester Cathedral in the UK by the National Youth Orchestra of Spain conducted by the composer. The 3rd Symphony, originally recorded on CD for Naxos by the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, received three GRAMMY nominations, including a nomination for the "Best New Composition of 2004".
Serebrier was born in Montevideo, Uruguay of Russian and Polish parents. At the age of nine he began to study the violin, and at age eleven made his conducting debut. While in high school he organized and conducted the first youth orchestra in Uruguay, which toured the country and gave more than one hundred concerts over four years. Upon graduating from the Municipal School of Music in Montevideo in violin, solfege, theory, and Latin American folklore at age fifteen, opportunities for conducting Uruguay's only major orchestra were not forthcoming.
That year, the annual composition contest by the National Orchestra, known as SODRE, was announced very late, only two weeks before the deadline. The young musician, thinking that if he won he might be permitted to conduct his work, entered the contest with a hastily written Legend of Faust overture. The 18-minute work was written in the last four days and nights, and the last page composed on a taxi while rushing to meet the deadline. Serebrier won the contest. But the composer being fifteen, his work was assigned to another guest conductor, Eleazar de Carvalho, at that time the most prominent Latin American conductor.
Today, Serebrier conducts most major orchestras around the world, and has become the most recorded conductor of his generation, with well over two hundred and fifty titles. His published compositions, many of them written at an early age, also number over one hundred. https://www.joseserebrier.com/composer_bio.html