The son of Alberto Ginastera and Luisa Bossi, Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 11, 1916 and died in Geneva, Switzerland, June 25, 1983.

He is one of the most transcendental Argentine composers. Not including his music scores for films and theater, Ginastera’s catalog comprises fifty four works, since he himself excluded ten, among them Impresiones de la puna for flute and strings . His production encompasses operas, ballets, cantatas, music for orchestra, orchestra and voice, concerts, instrumental chamber music, vocal and choral music, as well as works for soloist instruments.

He studied under Cayetano Argenziani, José Gil, Celestino Piaggio and Torcuato Rodríguez Castro at the Williams Conservatory of Buenos Aires. Later with José André, José Gil and Athos Palma in the National Music and Scenic Arts Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1938 as a Higher Education Composition Professor. In 1942 he won a Guggenheim scholarship to conduct research on the subject of “curricula of universities and conservatories of the United States.” Invited by Aaron Copland, he attended the courses of the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood.

Together with some colleagues he created the League of Composers of Argentina in 1947 and in 1962 he created Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM), which he directed.

From March 20, 1959 to April 17, 1964, he was the Dean of the School of Arts and Music Sciences of Universidad Católica Argentina. On June 3, 1966 he was appointed Professor Emeritus of that university, where, since June 1958 had directed the Preparatory Music School and Department of Contemporary Music. His remarkable pedagogical career also included being the Organizer and Director the Music and Scenic Art Conservatory of the Province of Buenos Aires, the Composition Chair of the National Music and Scenic Art Conservatory, and his private students -one of his disciples was Astor Piazzolla- as well as attending the Biannual Conventions of Music Educators in Cleveland, 1946 and Los Angeles, 1958.

He was a member of the National Academy of Fine Arts of Argentina, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Brazilian Music Academy and the School of Music Science and Arts of the University of Chile; he served as the Argentine representative before UNESCO’s International Music Council and was a Vice President of the Inter-American Music Council. He was a member of the Executive Board of the International Society of Contemporary Music and, since June 1981, of the committee for “Foreign Outreach of Argentine Culture” of Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales.

He received the National and Municipal Music Awards, the Carlos López Buchardo Prize of Asociación Wagneriana and in 1957 the Cinzano Prize for his Variaciones concertantes, besides other distinctions and mentions of the Argentine Academy of Film Arts and Sciences, the Association of Music Critics and the Association of Film Critics. In 1968, Yale University of the United States, granted him a Honoris Causa doctorate. In 1951, he was a member of the jury in the Composition Competition of the National Conservatory of Paris and in 1957, of the one organized by the Caracas Festival. He wrote for several publications, including Ars, Buenos Aires Musical, Modern Music, Polifonía and Revista Musical Chilena.

Rodolfo Arizaga has underlined that although Ginastera’s early works are clearly linked to the Paris School -especially with the dialectics of Igor F. Stravinsky-. He gradually evolved through the incorporation of Sergei Prokofiev’s piano technique, the nationalism of Bela Bartok, the orchestra strength of Paul Hindemith and the localism of Aaron Copland, until skirting and then plunging into atonalism and the serial technique of Arnold Schoenberg and his Vienna School. His last works show a moderate incursion into the environment of experimental music .

Ginastera has acknowledged three periods in his creative process. The first one, that he called “objective nationalism”, includes pieces such as Danzas Argentinas (Argentine Dances) for piano, Estancia and Obertura para el “Fausto” criollo (Overture for the criollo Faust). The second one, that he denominated “subjective nationalism”, reached its peak with Pampeana No. 3 for orchestra, 1954. In it, as in the first two Pampeanas, String Quartet No. 1 and Variaciones concertantes opus 23, “... present the characteristics of a style that, without disregarding Argentine tradition, had become broader or with greater universal amplitude. No longer, as in the previous stage, linked to genuinely local themes or rhythms, but creating an Argentine ambiance through an environment populated with symbols” . The third, or neo-expressionistic, period begins with String Quartet No. 2, 1958. For Ginastera, “... here the material becomes more transcendental while the musical language acquires a greater power of synthesis by openly adopting serialism” and although the works lack any melodic or rhythmic cell derived from folklore, “... the style has certain implications that could be considered to have an Argentine essence. For example, the strong or obsessive beats, that recall men dances; the contemplative quality of certain adages that suggest the tranquility of the Pampas or the magic and esoterical character of some parts that recall the country’s impenetrable nature.” The compositions dating to his years in Geneva since 1971 represent a nostalgic evocation of the features that link him to Argentina or the native America .

As fundamental constants in his production, Ginastera has identified the exaltation of lyricism, rhythms derived from men’s folkloric dances and an expressionist climate. The E-A-D-G-B-E chord (tuning of the guitar chords), was considered by Gilbert Chase to be symbolic of his work .