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Astor Piazzolla
March 11, 1921 - July 5, 1992
born in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, composed during the Contemporary period
Biography
"For me," Astor Piazzolla once said, "tango was always for the ear rather than the feet." Piazzolla expanded upon one of the great popular dance traditions of the Western Hemisphere, constantly crossing and recrossing the line between popular and classical music.

A tango master not of the barrooms but of the concert hall, Astor Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina in 1921. His family moved to New York's Little Italy, and his musical education was shaped by American jazz and pop. But his father gave him a bandoneón, a large Argentine concertina, to keep the family's connection to Argentine culture alive, and he also studied classical music. In 1934, he recorded with the Argentine tango pioneer Carlos Gardel, who soon would be killed in a plane crash. Returning to Argentina, he played the bandoneón in a Buenos Aires tango orchestra from 1936 to 1944, but the world of classical music had made a deep impression on him. A chance meeting with the great pianist Artur Rubinstein brought him into contact with Alberto Ginastera, Argentina's leading composer, and that led to several years of classical study. Piazzolla's Sinfonia Buenos Aires gained international acclaim but was poorly received in the composer's home country.
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