Sheet music by Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas. Ginastera studied at the conservatory in Buenos Aires, graduating in 1938. As a young professor, he taught at the Liceo Militar General San Martín. After a visit to the United States in 1945–47, where he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, he returned to Buenos Aires and co-founded the League of Composers. He held a number of teaching posts. Among his notable students were Ástor Piazzolla (who studied with him in 1941), Alcides Lanza, Waldo de los Ríos, Jacqueline Nova and Rafael Aponte-Ledée. Much of Ginastera’s works were inspired by the Gauchesco tradition. This tradition holds that the Gaucho, or landless native horseman of the plains, is a symbol of Argentina.