Ginastera: Piano Works (2017)

Tango has long become more than the popular Argentine urban dance which developed after 1870 in the poor working class and immigrant areas on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Tango has aficionados worldwide – be it for its music, culture or the dance. On New Year’s Eve 2006, conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, Argentinean by birth and upbringing, celebrated the end of the year with a spectacular musical event: a festival of Argentinean music live from Buenos Aires. In a seamless fusion of classical and traditional music, the Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires under Barenboim joined the excellent bandoneon virtuoso Leopoldo Federico and his Orquesta Tipica to present an extraordinary show with popular tangos and Latin American orchestra classics to a crowd of 10,000 in a free open-air concert at the Plaza de la República.

Eduardo Mata was an internationally known conductor. He conducted a wide repertoire and was particularly recognized for twentieth century music, particularly of Latin American composers. He began studying guitar when he was about eight years old. In 1953, he enrolled in the National Conservatory of Music, studying with Rodolfo Halffter and Jose Moncayo. From 1960 to 1963, he was in the composition workshop of Carlos Chavez and Julián Orbón. After winning a Koussevitzky Fellowship, he traveled to Tanglewood where he continued his studies in composition under Gunther Schuller and in conducting from Max Rudolf and Erich Leinsdorf.