He started music in Figueras as a piano student at the academy created by his father, the composer and cobla musician Josep Serra and his maternal aunt Mª Ángeles Corominas. In 1915 he studied at the Escola Municipal de música de Barcelona with Lluís Millet, Carles Pellicer and Enric Morera with whom he was able to develop his sensitive and creative personality. From the beginning he composed music for cobla and created works of great quality. From 1926 he wrote chamber music, songs and symphonic works with a great instrumental display. In 1933 he was an accompanying pianist and later musical director of the Radio Association of Catalonia. After the Civil War, he was a victim of the political cleansing of the regime and could only practice his profession in private settings. In 1945 he assumed the direction of the Cobla Barcelona and collaborated with the Paul Goubé Ballet. It was the director of the Esbart Verdaguer who composed many arrangements and choreographic music. In 1956 he published a Treatise on instrumentation, a referential work on the subject. In recent years he was director of the Musical area of Radio Nacional de España and his works became a great reference for many composers.
Joaquim Serra has been defined as the composer of "difficult simplicity". His extensive work for cobla is considered among the highest in artistic quality within the genre due to the important innovations it brings in the formal, timbral and discursive aspects. It was he who instituted a formal and stylistic model of music for concert cobla.
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW BETTER THE ARTIST?
Joaquim Serra Archive in Músics per la CoblaSheet music on Editorial Clivis
PERFORMED WORKS
Dansa, for piano
Cinc cançons sobre poemes de Josep Carner, for piano
La nena de la rotllana, for choir
Capvespre, for choir
Idil·li de la fruita galana, for choir
Als nens petit, for choir
Cançó del port, for voice and piano
Piano Trio
