What this site is all about.
I was born on October 25, 1942.
Four hundred years earlier, almost to the day (on November 1, 1542), another Villalobos, a Spanish explorer and navigator named Ruy Lopez de Villalobos (b. 1500? - d. 1544) led a fleet of six galleons with about 400 men from Jalisco, Mexico across the Pacific to a group of islands in the Far East.
Arriving there on December 25, 1542, he named them the Philippine Islands in honor of Prince Philip II of Spain.
If you are not aware of him, Ruy Villalobos is one of the earliest known members of the Villalobos "family," and you can learn more about him on Wikipedia.
Much more well known is the Brazilian composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, who was born in 1887 and died in 1959.
I myself find his music difficult to enjoy because none of it that I have heard ever quite manages to find a melody. Pretty notes strung together for an entire orchestra (or perhaps for guitar alone, or piano, etc.), but I feel that if you hear one composition by Villa-Lobos, you've pretty much heard them all.
His compositions do, however, make for a pleasant background as you are doing something that does not require strict attention to the music itself.
...That, at least, is my considered reaction after having listened to several recordings of his music. Feel free to disagree.
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