Joaquín Nin Explained

Birth Name:Joaquín Nin y Castellanos
Birth Date:29 September 1879
Birth Place:Havana, Captaincy General of Cuba, Spanish Empire
Death Place:Havana, Republic of Cuba
Spouse:Rosa Culmell
Children:

Joaquín Nin y Castellanos (29 September 1879 – 24 October 1949)[1] was a Cuban pianist and composer. Nin was the father of Anaïs Nin.

Biography

He was son of the Catalan writer Joaquin Nin Tudó and Àngela Castellanos Perdomo, a Cuban from Camagüey.[2] Nin studied piano with Moritz Moszkowski and composition at the Schola Cantorum (where he taught from 1906 to 1908). He toured as a pianist and was known as a composer and arranger of popular Spanish folk music. Nin was a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando of Madrid and the French Legion of Honor.[3]

Married since 1902 with the Cuban singer Rosa Culmell, they were the parents of writer Anaïs Nin, businessman Thorvald Nin, and composer Joaquín Nin-Culmell.

Joaquín Nin appears as one of the characters in the novel The Island of Eternal Love (Riverhead, 2008), by Cuban writer Daína Chaviano.

Memory

In her memoirs and fiction, his daughter Anaïs Nin often attempts to consider aspects of her own nature by recalling how her father treated her as a child. Her "unexpurgated" diary volume describes an incestuous relationship with him in adulthood. She described him as an egotistical Don Juan and would often imitate him by affecting a "Doña Juana" persona.

References

  1. Latin American Classical Composers. A biographical dictionary. First edition. Edited by Miguel Ficher, Martha Furman Schleifer, and John M. Furman.
  2. «Joaquim Nin i Castellanos». L'Enciclopèdia.cat. Barcelona: Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
  3. Taylor, Deems. "Dictionary of Musicians". Music Lovers' Encyclopedia. 4th ed. 1950. Important works for Violin and Piano: Seguida Española (Vieja Castilla, Murciana, Catalana, Andaluza), En el Jardin de Lindaraja.