Vintage 8x10 B&W glossy photograph signed in black ink by Carlos Chávez. The photograph has scattered creasing, otherwise, in good condition.(1899-1978) Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six symphonies, the second, or Sinfonía India, which uses native Yaqui percussion instruments, is probably the most popular. After the Mexican Revolution and the installation of a democratically elected president, Ãlvaro Obregón, Chávez became one of the first exponents of Mexican nationalist music with ballets on Aztec themes. In May 1953 he was commissioned by Lincoln Kirstein, director of the New York City center of Music and Drama, for a three-act opera to a libretto by Chester Kallman based on a story by Boccaccio, to be titled The Tuscan Players. Intended to be finished in August 1954, it was first postponed to April 1955, but only finally completed in 1956, by which time the title had been changed twice, first to Pánfilo and Lauretta, then to El amor propiciado. The City Center waived its rights to the first performance, which was given under the title Panfilo and Lauretta in the Brander Matthews Theatre at Columbia University in New York on 9 May 1957, under the baton of Howard Shanet. Stage direction was by Bill Butler, scenic design by Herbert Senn and Helen Pond, and costumes by Sylvia Wintle. The principal singers were Sylvia Stahlman, Frank Porretta, Craig Timberlake, Mary McMurray, Michael Kermoyan, and Thomas Stewart. The opera would be revised twice more and the title changed again to Los visitantes (The Visitors), for productions in 1968 and 1973, in Mexico City and Aptos, California, respectively. From 1958 to 1959 he was the Charles Eliot Norton professor at Harvard University, and the public lectures he gave there were published as a book, Musical Thought.This lot came from the Jim Wiggins collection we purchased in July 2022. Jim Wiggins accumulated the most unique and valuable autograph collection over a period of 70-plus years. He obtained his collection either in person or by writing to persons of fame and notoriety. Comes with a full Letter of Authenticity from Todd Mueller Authentics if the lot sells for $10 or more.