Juan Orrego-Salas

Juan Antonio Orrego Salas (b. Santiago, Chile, January 18, 1919) is a Chilean composer of contemporary classical music and musicologist.

He was a student of Randall Thompson and Aaron Copland in the United States, and later he settled in that country in the early 1960s to work at Indiana University, where co-founded the Latin American Music Center.

He has been one of the foremost Chilean composers and one of the most widely known of the musicians from that country around the world.

Highlights from his catalogue include the cantata "América, no en vano invocamos tu nombre" (on texts by Pablo Neruda), his First Piano Concerto, the vocal works "Canciones Castellanas" and "El Alba del Alhelí", the piece "Un Canto para Bolívar" composed for Quilapayún, the most important ensemble of Nueva Canción Chilena, and many orchestral, choral, and chamber works.

* [http://www.music.indiana.edu/som/lamc/info/whoswho/orrego.html bio page]