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Argentine composers & performers biographies
Following are composers and performers who participated in, or whose music was presented during, Sonidos de las Américas: Argentina, March 1 – 8, 1998.
EDUARDO ALONSO-CRESPO
composer
Argentine-born composer and conductor Eduardo Alonso-Crespo studied at the National University of Tucumán in Argentina, where he also received his civil engineering degree. Through a Fulbright grant, he obtained his master’s degree in conducting at Carnegie Mellon University.
Alonso-Crespo’s works have been performed by orchestras and ensembles from France, Portugal, Poland, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and the United States. He has been awarded more than a dozen national and international prizes from Argentine, Spanish, and Italian institutions, including the Alejandro Shaw Award from the National Academy of Fine Arts of Argentina and the Cristóbal Colón International Prize for Symphonic Music. His compositions range from chamber to orchestral music, while his works for the stage include the ballets Two Stories of Birds and Medea, the incidental music for Macbeth, and the operas Putzi, Juana la loca, and Gorbachov.
Alonso-Crespo’s music has been recorded on CD by the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Camerata Lazarte, and the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble. Since 1989, he has served as music director and conductor of the Tucumán Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Ensemble. He also keeps a busy schedule as guest conductor.
AMERICAS VOCAL ENSEMBLE
Nelly Vuksic, director
Americas Vocal Ensemble performs rarely heard music of North and South America. This rich but little known repertoire spans four centuries and encompasses a wide range of styles, including folk arrangements by distinguished Lain American composers. The group has presented New York and world premieres of close to a hundred contemporary works from both North and South America.
The group has performed in New York’s Merkin Hall, the Museum of Natural History, Mannes College of Music, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They perform at St. Peter’s Church under the auspices of Pan American Musical Arts. The Museo del Barrio hosts the Ensemble’s annual Christmas concert, and WQXR has broadcast its music live. Ensemble members are artists in residence at the Americas Society in New York. Americas Vocal Ensemble has also performed at the Inter-American Music Festival in Washington, D.C., Boston College, and throughout the tristate area.
Founder and music director Nelly Vuksic was born in Argentina, where she has conducted extensively, as well as in Colombia and the United States. She received her musical training at the University of Rosario in Argentina and continued with her doctoral studies at Ball State University, Indiana. Vuksic is the recipient of several national and international music awards and was commissioned by Colombian composer Luis Antonio Escobar to record his Cánticas y Madrigales on the CBS label. She is also director of the United Nations Singers in New York City.
CARLOS CALLEJA
composer
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Carlos Calleja graduated in composition and orchestra conducting at the School of Music Arts and Sciences of the Catholic University of Argentina. From 1985 to 1990, he was assistant conductor of the National Radio Youth Symphony. He has been principal conductor of the Avellaneda Symphony Orchestra since 1994.
In 1989, Calleja went to London on scholarship to further train in orchestral conducting with John Carewe at the Royal Academy of Music. He has since conducted orchestras such as the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, the National Symphony, the Rio de Janeiro Symphony (Brazil), the Santiago Philharmonic (Chile), and the orchestras of Teatro Colón, Teatro Argentino de La Plata, and Teatro Municipal.
Calleja served two seasons as musical assistant of the Teatro Colón Ballet and has conducted for many South American ballet companies. He has also taught orchestral conducting, 20th century harmony, and orchestration techniques at the Catholic University of Argentina.
His compositions include works for choir, ballet, and orchestra.
MIRIAN CONTI
piano
Argentine pianist Mirian Conti is leading exponent of Spanish music, and her ability to communicate passion and excitement when playing contemporary scores has won the admiration of leading American and Argentine composers.
Conti studied with Genny Blech in Buenos Aires and continued her musical education in New York, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees as an award-winning William Petscheck Scholarship student at The Juilliard School of Music, where her teachers were Richard Fabre and Josef Raieff. She has also studied with Edmundo López and Freda Rosenblatt in New York.
Conti has made solo, orchestral, and chamber appearances at Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and Weill Recital Hall, and has performed at concert halls throughout the world. In 1989, she was awarded a special prize as the best performer of Spanish music in the International Pilar Bayona Piano Competition in Zaragoza, Spain. She was recently awarded the Andrés Segovia–José Miguel Ruiz Morales Prize in the XXXVIII Santiago de Compostela International University Competition in Spanish Music, Spain.
A scholarship honoring Conti has been established at The Juilliard School by the Edwin Bachman Estate.
RICARDO DAL FARRA
composer
Ricardo Dal Farra was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1957 and still makes his home there. He is professor of electroacoustic music at the Manuel de Falla Municipal Conservatory of Music and the National Conservatory of Music of Argentina, and is director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio. He served ten years as director of the Electronic Music Laboratory of Argentina’s Society of Music Education. Dal Farra was also music technology consultant at the Technical School of the ORT, multimedia professor at the Manuel Dorrego Institute, and multimedia consultant at the National Ministry of Culture and Education.
Electroacoustic, computer, mixed, and instrumental compositions by Dal Farra have been played in international festivals of electroacoustic and contemporary music in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Scotland, Spain, the United States, Canada, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Norway, Sweden, and The Netherlands. He has also performed internationally as a live electronic musician.
Dal Farra is director of the Buenos Aires radio series Electromúsica and the national series Música y Tecnologiá. Dal Farra is Argentina’s representative at UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music.
He has received awards, commissions and grants from the International Computer Music Association, CCRMA—Stanford University, Rockefeller Foundation, National Rostrum of Composers of Argentina, Centro di Sonologia Computazionale of the Università di Padova, Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique of Bourges, and Fundacao Bienal de São Paulo.
MARIO DAVIDOVSKY
composer
Born in 1934 in Médanos, Buenos Aires, Mario Davidovsky began his musical studies at the ago of seven, continued his education at the Collegium Musicium, and graduated from the Bartolomé Mitre School in Buenos Aires in 1952.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, director of the Koussevitzky Foundation at the Library of Congress, director of the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, director of C.R.I., and founder and vice president of the Robert Miller Fund for Music. Fellowships have included the Koussevitzky Foundation Fellowship, the Williams Foundation Fellowship, the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. Davidovsky has received a Pulitzer Prize and awards from the Association Wagneriana, the Asociación Amigos de la Música, BMI, Brandeis University, and the National Institute of Arts.
Davidovsky has received numerous commissions, including ones from the Fromm Foundation, the Juilliard String Quartet, the Koussevitzky Foundation, Yale University, the New York Chamber Soloists, Parnassus, the Universities of Pennsylvania and Chicago, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, the San Francisco Symphony, MIT, the Naumburg Foundation, the Dorian Quintet, the Emerson Quartet, the New Music Consort, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
He is a professor of music at Harvard and Columbia Universities and chairman of the Electronic Music Center at Columbia University. Davidovsky has held visiting professorships at the University of Michigan, Yale University, City University, the Di Tella Institute (Argentina), the Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Pennsylvania.
GERARDO DIRIÉ
composer
Born in Córdoba, Argentina, in1958, composer Gerardo Dirié studied at the National University of Córdoba with César Franchisena, Atilio Argüello, and Oscar Bazán, later studying at Indiana University with John Eaton and Eugene O’Brien. His career has been distinguished with awards from Fulbright, ASCAP, the International Tribune of Composers (Paris and Helsinki), the National Tribune of Electroacoustic Composers of Argentina, the National Fund for the Arts, and the Encounters Foundation for Contemporary Music in Argentina. His music has been performed in numerous concert halls of the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Besides creating works for professional musicians and ensembles, Dirié has been commissioned to write music for stage productions at the Indiana Repertory Theatre, music for a CNN educational documentary, and new music for children. Currently, he is the coordinator of the Latin American Music Center at Indiana University. His work in composition, music education, and performance is inspired by the music of various cultures and by his experiences as choral conductor, rock bassist, clarinetist, and early music performer.
MARIANO ETKIN
composer
Mariano Etkin was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1943 and studied with Guillermo Grätzer and, as a grantee of the Di Tella Institute, with Iannis Xenakis, Earle Brown, and Alberto Ginastera. In addition, he studied at Utrecht University with a Netherlands Government Fellowship and with Luciano Berio in New York as a grantee of the Organization of American States.
Etkin’s awards include the Juan Carlos Pax Composition Prize of the Argentine National Fund for the Arts, the Composition Prize of the City of Buenos Aires, and the AVRO Prize of the Gaudeamus Competition, Holland. He has received commissions from Radio Bremen, Radio Deutschlandfunk, Ensemble Aventure, and the Freiberger Schlagzeug Ensemble.
Etkin’s works have been played at major festivals and contemporary music series including the ISCM World Music Days in Toronto, Amsterdam, Oslo, and Essen; the Musica Nova Series; and the Latin American festivals of Mexico and Caracas.
A former visiting professor at McGill University (Montreal), the Royal Conservatory, and the Hague (Holland), and professor of composition at Wilfrid Lauier University (Ontario), Etkin has been guest lecturer at the Musikochschule in Stuttgart as well as being invited as distinguished guest of Stuttgart’s Akademie Schloss Solitude. He is currently the main professor of composition and musical analysis and director of a research project on analysis of new music at the National University of La Plata, Argentina.
MÁXIMO FLÜGELMAN
composer
Máximo Flügelman was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and started piano lessons at the age of six. Following in the footsteps of his often-quoted life model, Charles Ives, Flügelman went on to simultaneously pursue international finance and music.
He obtained an economics degree from Geneva University while attending the Conservatoire de Musique. Flügelman then accepted a position with a leading commercial bank, earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and subsequently undertook a successful career with the World Bank in Washington. At that point, he studied harmony and orchestration with Robert Parris.
In 1977, Flügelman devoted himself to a full-time degree program in composition. In 1980, he obtained his bachelor’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with John Corigliano, and in 1981 he earned his master’s degree at The Juilliard School of Music, studying with David Diamond under a Bunger and Born Foundation Fellowship.
In 1983, Flügelman was selected “Outstanding Young Achiever” in music, a distinction awarded each year to young persons of exceptional merit by the Argentine Junior Chamber of Commerce. Flügelman’s other honors include the Indiana State University/Indianapolis Symphony’s 14th Contemporary Orchestra Composition award for his Symphonic Variatiants, which also garnered a laudatory review in the Washington Post following a performance of the work in Washington, D.C., and first prize for his Concertino for Woodwind Quartet and Orchestra in the National Composition Competition sponsored by the Argentine State Radio.
GERARDO GANDINI
composer
Composer and pianist Gerardo Gandini was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He studied composition under Alberto Ginastera and later, at Rome’s Santa Cecilia Academy, under Goffredo Petrassi. He also studied piano with Pia Sabastiani, Roberto Caamañio, and Ivonne Loriod.
As a composer, Gandini has received numerous grants, including ones from the Institute of International Education, the Italian Government, and the Guggenheim. He has been awarded the Buenos Aires Municipal Prize for Composition, first prize in the international competition organized by the Congress for Cultural Liberty (Rome), first prize for chamber music awarded by the Argentine Mozarteum, the Young Musicians’ Award of Spain, the Penny Opera Prize from the Municipality of Buenos Aires, and the Molière Prize from the French government for music for theater.
Gandini has taught at The Juilliard School of Music, the Di Tella Institute, and the Conservatory of the City of La Plata. He has served as advisor to the Argentine National Arts Fund and directed the Contemporary Music Workshop under the auspices of the San Telmo Foundation and the Goethe Institute in Buenos Aires.
At present, he heads the Center for Experimentation in Opera and Ballet for the Colón Theatre, is founding director of the Sinfonietta of the Omega Insurance Company Foundation, and is director of the Contemporary Music Research Center of the Catholic University of Argentina.
OSVALDO GOLIJOV
composer
Born in La Plata, Argentina, Osvaldo Golijov lived there and in Jerusalem before moving to the United States in 1986. He studied with George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his doctorate, and with Lukas Foss and Oliver Knussen at Tanglewood, where he received the Koussevitzky Composition Prize. He now lives in Newton, Massachusetts, and teaches at the College of the Holy Cross.
He has won two Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards for chamber music composition, in 1993 for Yiddishbbuk and in 1995 for The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. Other recent awards include the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Stoeger Prize for Contemporary Music, the BMW prize for music theatre composition awarded by the jury of the Munich Biennale, and the Paul Fromm Award. He has received commissions and grants from the Koussevitzky, Guggenheim, Barlow, Wexner, and Fromm Foundations; Chamber Music America; Meet The Composer; and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Golijov’s music has been performed internationally from Washington’s Kennedy Center to Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and at festivals including Tanglewood, Spoleto USA, Oregon Bach Festival, and Germany’s Munich Biennale.
His music can be heard on the Elektra/Nonesuch label, which recently released a CD of The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, recorded by the Kronos Quartet and David Krakauer. His 1996 premieres were Last Round, an hommage to Astor Piazzolla, commissioned by the Contemporary Music Group of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (UK), and Oceana, premiered at the Oregon Bach Festival.
Current projects include new works commissioned for the Kronos Quartet, Dawn Upshaw, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and a chamber opera for Boston Musica Viva.
DANTE G. GRELA H.
composer
Dante G. Grela H., a native of Rosario, Argentina, is active as both composer and commentator at festivals of contemporary music in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, and Uruguay. Grela’s compositions, which have received international citations and awards, have been premiered at venues in Argentina, as well as in Brazil, Canada, Chile, El Salvador, France, Germany, and the United States. His oeuvre includes works for solo instruments, chamber and orchestral music, and acoustic instruments and electronics.
In addition to his work as a composer, Grela maintains a career as college professor and academic researcher. The teaching posts Grela has held include professor of composition and director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio at the School of Music of the National University at Rosario, as well as professor of composition, researcher, and head of the composition department of the Graduate Institute of Music of the National University of Litoral.
His work has been recognized by several foundations, including the Fulbright Commission, which awarded Grela a grant in 1978 to work as composer-in-residence at the Electronic Music Center of Columbia University. In 1993, the Canadian Government gave Grela a grant to support his study of the contemporary music scene in that country.
Grela has written numerous essays on compositional pedagogy, musical analysis, and orchestration. He has also written extensively on new and contemporary music in Latin America and is regularly invited to give papers at conferences, both in Argentina and elsewhere, on techniques and aesthetics of contemporary music.
DESIREE HALAC
mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano Desiree Halac grew up in La Cumbre, Sierras de Córdoba, Argentina. She graduated from the National Conservatory in Buenos Aires with a piano degree. She then moved to London where she began her vocal studies at the Mayer Lismann-Opera Workshop.
In 1991, Halac came to New York with a scholarship from Mannes College of Music, where she received her master’s and professional studies degrees. Upon graduation she was awarded the Shoshana Foundation Award. Since 1995, she studies voice with Trish McCaffrey.
Halac has appeared as Farnace in Mozart’s Mitridate at the Kloster Festival in Germany, Rosina in Il Barbiere de Siviglia and Papagena in Die Zauberflöte with Virginia Opera, Nicklausse in Les Contes d’Offmann for Aspen Opera Festival, and the title role of Piazzolla’s María de Buenos Aires, organized by the Argentinean Embassy in Washington.
This past December, Halac was soloist with I Musici di San Cassiano, which toured Spain performing an all-Bach program She may be heard in the role of the Sorceress on the Vox label recording of Dido and Aeneas with the same goup.
She has given song recitals in Argentina, and at Trinity Church, American Opera Projects, Weill Hall, Mannes School, and for UNICEF and UNIFEM. She toured an all Spanish and Latin American song recital with pianist Jerry Shannon for Virginia Opera in their celebration of Thea Musgrave’s Simón Bolívar.
JOSÉ HALAC
composer
José Halac is an Argentine and New York-based vocalist and composer of instrumental and computer music. His pieces have been performed in festivals and concerts in the United States, South America, Spain, Holland, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Israel, Italy, Japan, and Korea.
He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, five ASCAP awards, the Lee Ettelson Composers Award, the John Cage Award for Experimental Music, an Antorchas Foundation (Argentina) grant, UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Composers award, a Djerassi Foundation residency, and the Córdoba (Argentina) Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Artist of the Year Award.
The Synchronia Ensemble and Composers Inc. have recently performed his music. He has premiered pieces with the Orquesta Banco Mayo from Buenos Aires, the children’s choir in Córdoba, Argentina, and the Brooklyn College Percussion Ensemble. In July, 1996, he performed with his band SCREAM at the Creative Time festival at the anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge and at The Kitchen’s TONE festival. SCREAM performed in Argentina’s first experimental music festival, EXPERIMENTA ’97.
Halac’s upcoming projects include premiering his NEA-commissioned songs, recording a CD with SCREAM, and composing a computer music piece for the Bourges Festival in France.
ALEJANDRO IGLESIAS ROSSI
composer
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1960, Alejandro Iglesias Rossi studied composition at the Boston Conservatory of Music and the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris.
He has received first prize of the International Rostrum of Composers (Paris, 1995), first prize of the International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music (Amsterdam, 1996), and the Nadia Boulanger Scholarship (Paris, 1988), as well as the Kazimierz Serocki Prize (Warsaw, 1984) and the TRINAC Prize (Buenos Aires, 1985).
Iglesias Rossi has been a member of the jury at UNESCO’s Prize of Honor for Music in Paris and World Music Days in Warsaw, and his works have been performed at contemporary music festivals including the Berlin Biennale, Festival d’Orleans, Warsaw Autumn, Steirischer Herbst, Dresden Tage, World Music Days, Foro de Música Nueva- Mexico, and Spaziomusica.
He currently produces a weekly series of radio programs at the Radio of the City of Buenos Aires, dedicated to explore the crossroads between spirituality and contemporary music, as well as teaching composition at the Center for Advanced Studies in Contemporary Music at the Di Tella Institute.
RAÚL JAURENA
bandoneón
Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Raúl Jaurena first studied bandoneón with his father and was a member of a children’s tango orchestra at age eight. At age fifteen, he became a member of the Donato Raciatti Orchestra, one of the most popular orchestras at the time. He accompanied many of the most prominent tango singers, most notably Roberto Goyeneche, Edmundo Rivero, Raul Lavie, Agustín Irusta, and Libertad Lamarque, and he performed with Astor Piazzolla at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Jaurena was bandoneónist and arranger for several tango orchestras in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Chile during the 1960s and 1970s, and was a member of the legendary Uruguayan pianist César Zagnoli’s trio.
Jaurena performs regularly in New York with bassist Pablo Aslan and with the New York Tango Trio, with whom he recorded the album Cabarute. In 1996, he toured Europe and Russia with acclaimed tango group New York–Buenos Aires Connection, of which he is musical director, and the Irene Hultman Dance Company. In 1997, he performed in Berlin as music director of Tango Mundo. Jaurena has recorded with Brazilian singer Ana Caram for Chesky Records and with Paquito D’Rivera for Messidor. He performed at the second and third International Tango Summits in 1995 and 1996, and recently returned from the Viva el Tango Festival in Montevideo, Uruguay.
MARTA LAMBERTINI
composer
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Marta Lambertini studied composition with Luis Gianneo, Roberto Caamaño, and Gerardo Gandini at the School of Music Arts and Sciences of the Catholic University of Argentina. She furthered her studies with a scholarship granted by the Center for the Research on Massmedia, Art, and Technology with Gandini, Francisco Kröpfl, José Maranzano, and Gabriel Brncic.
Lambertini has been awarded numerous prizes for her works and has participated as a jury member in national and international competitions and music festivals, such as Cervantino (Guanajuanto and Mexico City), the International Forum for Contemporary Music (Mexico City and Flagstaff, Arizona), Festival Latinoamericano de Música (Caracas), and Latin American Music Now (Milwaukee).
Her works span various instrumental and vocal genres, including operas as well as numerous symphonic and chamber works. She has taught at several institutions, including the National University of La Plata and the National School of Music and is currently dean of the Faculty of Music Arts and Sciences of the Catholic University of Argentina.
JORGE LIDERMAN
composer
Jorge Liderman was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and received his musical training at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem and at the University of Chicago. In 1989, he joined the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley, where is a professor of composition.
Liderman’s music has been widely performed in the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America, and has been featured at music festivals such as the Munich Biennale, Tanglewood, Nuova Consonanza, Stuttgart’s Neue Musik, Semaines Musicales, Internationales d’Orleans, Osaka’s Expo 90, London’s VIVA, New Music Chicago, Mexico’s International Forum for Contemporary Music, and the Los Angeles International Music Festival.
His works have been commissioned and performed by groups such as the London Sinfonietta, the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, the Tanglewood Orchestra, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, the Arditti Quartet, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Chicago Pro Musica, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Nieuw Ensemble, London’s Group for New Music, Society for New Music, Berkeley Contemporary Opera, and Grupo Encuentros.
Liderman has received fellowships from the Tanglewood Music Center and the Darmstadt Internationales Musikinstitut, an award from Radio France for his String Quartet No. 1, and two Paul Jacobs commissions. He has represented Argentina at the Gaudeamus International Composers’ Conference in Amsterdam and at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris.
MARTÍN MATALON
composer
Martín Matalon was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1958. In 1984, he received his bachelor’s of music degree in composition from the Boston Conservatory of Music and in 1986 his master’s of music degree from The Juilliard School of Music, where he studied with composers Vincent Persichetti and Bernard Rands. In 1988, he received a Fulbright scholarship to pursue his composition studies in France with Tristen Murail. Parallel with this, Matalon studied conducting with Jacques-Louis Monod from 1987 to 1989.
Matalon has received the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Holtkamp-AGO award, and the Opera Autrement award from the Centre Acanthes in France for the production of his opera based on Jorge Luis Borges’s El Milagro Secreto.
He was commissioned by IRCAM and the Centre Pompidou to compose music for a Borges exhibition at the center in 1992. In 1993, IRCAM asked him to write the music for Fritz Lang’s newly restored version of Metropolis. This was followed by Le Tunnel sous l’Atlantique, interactive music for an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou and the Museum of Modern Art of Montreal on Virtual Images. In 1996, the Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona commissioned him to write an original score for Luis Buñuel’s Un chien andalou.
Matalon is the founder and artistic director of Music Mobile, a chamber ensemble based in New York.
ORQUESTA NOVA
Chamber ensemble Orquesta Nova presents the rich diversity of popular song and dance forms of Latin America, including the Caribbean.
Founded by violist Juliet Haffner and composer/arranger Carlos Franzetti, the group has a special affinity for the music of Argentina, performing music by Astor Piazzolla, Carlos Gardel, Carlos Franzetti, Angel Villoldo, Pintín Castellanos and Pedro Palau. Tangos and milongas are among Orquesta Nova’s many specialities.
They have released two internationally-acclaimed CDs on the Chesky label, Orquesta Nova and Salón New York.
PABLO ORTIZ
composer
Pablo Ortiz was first trained in his native Buenos Aires, Argentina, graduating from the Catholic University of Argentina. At 27, he traveled to New York to study with Mario Davidovsky at Columbia University. He taught composition and was co-director of the Electronic Music Studio at the University of Pittsburgh from 1990 to 1994.
His music has been performed by the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, the Arditti String Quartet, Speculum Musicae, the Ensemble Contrechamps of Geneva, Music Mobile, Continuum, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, EarPlay, Ars Nova, and the Theatre of Voices in the New York New Music Ensemble, as well as at international festivals in Salzburg, Geneva, Frankfurt, Zurich, Mexico City, and São Paulo.
Ortiz was a fellow at the Composers’ Conference at Wellesley College in 1986 and 1998, and he was commissioned by the Fromm Foundation in 1992. In 1993, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was awarded the Roberto Caamaño Prize by the National Academy of Fine Arts in Argentina and the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996.
In 1997, his opera, Parodia, based on Monteverdi’s Il combattimento de Tancredi e Clorinda, was premiered at the Experimental Center at Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires. Ortiz’s works include chamber and solo music, vocal, orchestral, and electronic compositions, and music for plays and films. At present, he is associate professor of composition at the University of California at Davis.
LALO SCHIFRIN
composer
Argentine-born and internationally renown composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist, Lalo Schifrin has written more than a hundred scores for film and television, including Mission Impossible, Mannix, Bullitt, and Dirty Harry. He has been nominated for sixteen Grammy Awards, has won four of them, and has received six Oscar nominations.
Schifrin came from a musical framily, and his father, Luis Schifrin, was concert master of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires. In the early 1950s, Schifrin received formal music education at the Paris Conservatory. He became a professional jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, playing and recording in Europe. Schifrin returned to Buenos Aires in the mid-1950s and formed his own big concert band. Dizzy Gillespie heard Schifrin play and asked him to become his pianist and arranger. In 1959, Schifrin moved to the United States.
Schifrin’s compositions have since been heard worldwide. He was commissioned to write the Grand Finale for the finals of the 1990 World Cup Soccer Championship in Italy, which was sung by the first gathering of Three Tenors Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and José Carreras. Schifrin also arranged the Three Tenors sequel held at Dodger Stadium in 1994.
In 1989, his Cantos Aztecas for chorus, solo voices and orchestra, was telecast from the Pyramids of Teotihuacán in Mexico with Plácido Domingo as tenor soloist and the composer conducting the world premiere.
Schifrin has conducted orchestras around the world from the London Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony Orchestras to the National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina.
As a jazz musician, has performed and recorded with Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, and Count Basie. He is pianist and conductor of his ongoing series of Jazz Meets the Symphony records, featuring the London Philharmonic Orchestra and jazz greats.
Schifrin has been appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres, one of the highest distinctions granted by France’s Minister of Culture. He is recipient of a BMI Life Achievement Award and in 1988 received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
ALICIA TERZIAN
composer
Born in Córdoba, Argentina, in July, 1934, Argentine composer, musicologist, and conductor Alicia Terzian studied composition with Alberto Ginastera at the Buenos Aires National Conservatory, where she graduated in 1958 and won the gold medal in 1959. She also studied Armenian sacred music with Father Leoncio Dayan in 1962 at the Mekhitarist Monastery in St. Lazaro, Italy. Later, she followed studies in conducting with Mariano Drago.
In 1978, Terzian founded the Encuentros Group for contemporary music to introduce international audiences to Latin American, and specifically Argentine, avant- garde music. Under her direction, the group has participated in over 170 festivals introducing 60 new works including 40 commissioned scores by Argentine composers. The group has toured Europe, Russia, China, and the three Americas.
Terzian has received the Argentine Composers Award, the Chevalier de l’Order des Palmes Académiques given by the French government, the St. Sahak and St. Mesrop Medal from Catholics Vazken I of Armenia, and the Mozart Medal by the International Music Council during the Assembly held in Seoul, Korea, in 1995. She is a member of the National Academy of Fine Arts in Chile, regional secretary of the International Music Council, and artistic director of the International Encounters for Contemporary Music, where she has organized annual festivals.
Terzian was a teacher of composition, orchestration and counterpoint, history and aesthetic of music at the National Conservatory of Music, the University of La Plata, and the Colón Opera House of Buenos Aires.
JULIO MARTÍN VIERA
composer
Julio Martín Viera was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1943. In 1972, he graduated from the Catholic University of Argentina with a degree in musical composition. His present activities include serving as chief of the Laboratory of Research and Musical Production at the City of Buenos Aires Cultural Center since 1986, secretary of the Argentine Federation of Electroacoustic Music since 1985, secretary of the New Music Group since 1974, and composition professor at the Catholic University of Argentina.
Viera has received several national and international prizes and fellowships including the CICMAT fellowship of the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires, the Municipal Award in Music Composition, the National Award in Music Composition, the Prize SADAIC (Sociedad Argentina de Autores Intérpretes y Compositores) in Symphonic Music, and the Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition,
In 1987, Viera was invited as composer to the Sound Celebration Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, and in 1990 and 1997 was invited to be a fellow composer at the Composers Conference in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
MARÍA CECILIA VILLANUEVA
composer
Born in La Plata, Argentina, in 1964, María Cecilia Villanueva studied composition with Mariano Etkin at the National University of La Plata. In 1988, she was finalist in the Young Composers Forum competition, organized by the Goethe Institute in Buenos Aires, and won second prize in the Young Composers Competition sponsored by the National University of La Plata and the Catalonian Composers Association in Barcelona, Spain. Villanueva was a 1994/95 grantee at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and a 1996 grantee at Künstlerhof Schreyahn in Germany.
Villanueva’s recent commissions are by Freiburger Schlagzeug Ensemble, Donaueschinger Musiktage; the Musik Biennale Berlin; and the Rümlingen Festival in Switzerland. Her music has been played at major festivals and contemporary music series in Europe and Latin America, including Westdeutscher Rundfunk Forum Jünger Komponisten (Köln), Pro Musica Nova, VII Latin American Music Festival, ISCM World Music Days, Musica Nova Series, and Neue Musik Rümlingen Festival (Switzerland).
Villanueva is currently working as a researcher on musical analysis and is assistant professor of composition at the National University of La Plata.
EZEQUIEL VIÑAO
composer
Ezequiel Viñao was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1960. From age twelve, he received private instruction in composition from Jacobo Ficher, a Russian composer trained by Rimsky-Korsakov. On a grant from the United Nations, he moved to New York in 1980. After graduating from The Juilliard School, he was invited to work with Olivier Messiaen at the Festival d’Avignon.
Viñao’s music has been performed at major venues around the world including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Almeida Theatre in London, the Aspen Music Festival, the Bourges Festival in France, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Helsinki Biennale, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Carnegie Hall, and on radio stations in over thirty countries. He has collaborated with a range of performing groups, such as the Boston Pro-Arte Chamber Orchestra, Speculum Musica, Da Camera of Houston, the Smith Quartet, The Brentano String Quartet, and Boston’s Dinosaur Annex.
His recent awards are from the Argentinian Academy of Fine Arts, the International Society for Contemporary Music, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the International Music Council in Paris, the Djerassi Foundation in California, UNESCO’s Rostrum of Composers, and a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award.
Viñao is currently composing an opera, Merlin, based on the Arthurian legends, with a libretto by Caleb Carr, and his music can be heard on the ICMA and Pro Piano Record labels.
PABLO ZIEGLER
composer/pianist
Pablo Ziegler began playing classical music at the age of fourteen and within a few years was performing piano concerts. In the early 1960s, influenced by bebop and Dixieland music, he began playing jazz. While performing and arranging jazz music, he formed the Pablo Ziegler Trio, which presented jazz arrangements of classical music.
In 1978, Ziegler was invited to become pianist for Astor Piazzolla’s New Tango Quintet. He traveled with this group throughout Europe, Japan, and North America for more than ten years. Performances included the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Nice Jazz Festival, the Berlin Jazz Festival, the North Sea Jazz Festival, the Sapporo Jazz Festival, Central Park Summerstage, the Istanbul Jazz Festival, and many others throughout the world.
During this time, Ziegler also played with musicians such as Gary Burton, recorded live at the Montreaux Festival in Switzerland, worked with the Italian singer Milva at La Bouffe du Nord Theatre in Paris, and performed at the Arena de Verona in Italy in a homage to Maria Callas.
Most recently, Ziegler and his Quintet for New Tango have toured the United States several times, performing at such venues as the Florida International Festival, Lincoln Center, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Houston Society for Performing Arts, and the Ravinia Festival.
Last year, he teamed up with classical pianist Emanuel Ax to record Ziegler’s two- piano arrangements of Piazzolla tangos on Sony Classical album Los Tangueros. Ziegler is currently recording an album of his own and of Piazzolla’s music with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.