Juan Orrego-Salas

Born in Santiago, Chile, in 1919, Orrego-Salas completed undergraduate work not only in composition (as a student of Pedro Humbert Allende and Domingo Santa Cruz), but also in architecture. By this time he was also teaching music history at the National Conservatory in Santiago and was also conducting the Catholic University choir. With fellowships from the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, he was able to study composition in the United States with Randall Thompson and Aaron Copland. Returning to Chile, he became a professor of composition at the University of Chile. In 1961 he permanently relocated to the United States to work at Indiana University; he also co founded the Latin American Music Center. His works have been extensively performed by major orchestras and chamber ensembles in Europe and the Americas. They include a wide variety of compositions in many genres, such as four symphonies, ballets, an opera, chamber music and music for film.

Orrego-Salas’s Compositions