Luis Eduardo Aute Gutiérrez (born 13 September 1943 in Manila, Philippines) was a Spanish singer, composer, painter and film director who emerged from a bilingual childhood that blended Spanish and Tagalog influences. His first public performance came in Madrid with the Hotel Aveneda orchestra, and he released the single "Don Ramón" in 1967, followed by his debut album Diálogos de Rodrigo y Gimena in 1968 under RCA‑Victor. Aute’s early work, such as 24 Canciones Breves (1968) and Rito (1973), established him in the Spanish pop and world‑music scenes, while his soundtrack contributions to films by Jaime Chávarri and Luis García Berlanga broadened his artistic reach. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he released a steady stream of albums-including Espuma (1974), Babel (1975), Cuerpo a Cuerpo (1984), and Segundos Fuera (1989)-and collaborated with Cuban singer Silvio Rodríguez on the live album Mano a Mano (1993), which sold well in Spain and Latin America. In the 1990s he expanded into multimedia, combining music with visual art in projects like Alevosía (1995) and Alas y Balas (2003). Aute received the Premio Luigi Tenco in 2001 for his body of work, and his later releases Intemperie (2010) and El Niño que miraba el mar (2012) continued to chart in Spain. Luis Eduardo Aute Gutiérrez died on 4 April 2020 from COVID‑19, leaving a legacy that includes over forty studio albums, several film scores, and a sustained influence on Spanish and Latin‑American music and art.
