Astor Piazzolla

Raised largely in New York and back in Buenos Aires as a bandoneónist in Aníbal Troilo's orchestra, Astor Piazzolla spent his twenties writing symphonic scores while also performing tango. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1954, where she encouraged him to develop his tango music. He went home and formed the Octeto Buenos Aires, then the Quinteto Nuevo Tango, replacing the dance orchestra with a chamber ensemble built on counterpoint, extended harmony, dissonance and improvisation. Adiós Nonino, Libertango, the operita María de Buenos Aires and Las cuatro estaciones porteñas are among his works. Traditional tango circles resisted him for years. He died in Buenos Aires in 1992. The Paris studies came on a French government scholarship, and the symphonic works of those years brought him the Fabián Sevitzky prize for Buenos Aires and the award of the Buenos Aires music critics for his Sinfonietta. He set texts by Jorge Luis Borges and Horacio Ferrer, wrote for films, and received a posthumous Grammy nomination for Oblivion in 1993. In later years he toured as a bandoneón soloist with symphony orchestras in the United States, Japan, Italy, Germany, France and across Latin America.