Roque Cordero

Roque Cordero (1917–2008) is universally acknowledged as Panama’s finest composer. At age 21 he founded what three years later became the Orquesta Nacional de Panamá. In 1943, Cordero won a short-term scholarship to the University of Minnesota, where he attracted the attention of Minneapolis Philharmonic conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, who provided Cordero with financial assistance to study composition with Ernst Krenek. Cordero also studied orchestral conducting with Stanley Chapple and Leon Barzin.
In 1950, Cordero returned home to Panama and became associate director (1950–53) and later director (1953–64) of the National Conservatory, and artistic director and conductor of the Panama National Symphony Orchestra (1964–66). Cordero returned to the United States in 1966 as assistant director of the Latin American Music Center at Indiana University. He taught at Illinois State University from 1972 until his retirement in 2000.

Maestro Cordero’s Compositions