José Eulalio Samayoa

José Eulalio Samayoa (c. 1781 – c. 1866) was a Guatemalan classical composer. Biography José Eulalio Samayoa was educated within the system of guilds, progressing from apprentice to journeyman before becoming a master. He founded the Philharmonic Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with a series of musical and liturgical celebrations held on July 2, 1813. The same day he was admitted to the Guatemala Cathedral choir, as third tenor, which he regarded as a heavenly grace for having established the Philharmonic Society. In 1842 he wrote the history of this Society, with an extended historical appendix on the development of Music in Guatemala since the earliest days of the Spanish missions, thus becoming the first music historian in Central America and perhaps all of Latin America. Samayoa is one of the first composers in the Americas to attempt the composition of larger instrumental forms that culminates in the symphony. Having been trained in the tradition of Spanish church music, he was taught how to write well for voices with instrumental accompaniment. The resulting forms, mainly those of the villancico and cantata, were defined by the poetic form of the text. When the Cathedra