PASSINGS : Jose Manuel Braga Santos; Portuguese Composer

Jose Manuel Braga Santos, 64, one of Portugal’s leading composers and a conductor whose six symphonies, as well as overtures, opera and choral works have been performed by orchestras in Europe, the United States and Japan. In 1966, Braga Santos’ Fifth Symphony was awarded a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization International Composers’ Tribune Prize. The early works of the composer, who studied at the Lisbon Conservatory and in Italy, were influenced by the Portuguese Renaissance and traditional music from the southern Alentejo region. He later developed a more chromatic and often dissonant style. In Lisbon on Monday of a heart attack.