Ariel Ramírez

Ariel Ramírez (4 September 1921 – 18 February 2010) was an Argentine composer, pianist and music director. He was considered "a chief exponent of Argentine folk music" and noted for his "iconic" musical compositions.

Biography

Ariel Ramírez was born in Santa Fe, Argentina.

Ramírez had two daughters, Mariana and Laura, and a son, Facundo. (NB: The Washington Post reported in error that he had two sons.) He married musicologist Norma Inés Cuello de Ramírez.

Compositions In 1964, the Ramírez composition Misa Criolla marked the beginning of a period of high musical productivity for the composer, which also heralded the premieres of the works Navidad Nuestra and La Peregrinación (both 1964); Los Caudillos (1965); Mujeres Argentinas (1969), and Alfonsina y el mar (1969), all produced in collaboration with writer Félix Luna. Misa Criolla and Alfonsina y el mar are probably his best-known compositions.

Misa Criolla

Misa Criolla was one of the first masses not in Latin shortly after the Second Vatican Council permitted use of the vernacular in Catholic churches. by Philips Records, directed by Ramírez himself with Los Fronterizos as featured performers (Philips 820-39 LP, including Navidad Nuestra, remastered in 1994 and released by Philips as CD 526 155). It was not publicly performed until 1967 in Düsseldorf, Germany, during a European tour that eventually brought Ariel Ramírez before Pope Paul VI. Other notable recordings feature the solo voices of George Dalaras (1989), José Carreras (1990), and Mercedes Sosa (1999). Plácido Domingo recorded the Kyrie (the first movement of the Misa) with Dominic Miller on guitar (2003). On 12 December 2014, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, it was performed in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome at the invitation of Pope Francis, with Patricia Sosa as the soprano soloist and conducted by Facundo Ramírez, son of the composer, who had conducted its first performance in St. Peter's Basilica exactly fifty years before.

"Alfonsina y el mar"

While not sharing the same worldwide success, Alfonsina y el mar enjoys great popularity in Latin America and Spain, being one of the most well regarded songs in Argentine folk music. The piece pays homage to poet Alfonsina Storni, evoking her tragic suicide in 1938, when she threw herself into the sea at La Perla beach in Mar del Plata, and the poem she wrote as a goodbye message, I Am Going to Sleep. Artists of the stature of Mercedes Sosa, Nana Mouskouri, Violeta Parra, Alfredo Kraus, Avishai Cohen and José Carreras (with Pasión Vega) have made recordings of the song, as well as many other popular singers including Shakira, Ane Brun, Miguel Bosé, Andrés Calamaro and Paloma San Basilio.

Other

Other major compositions by Ramírez include the Cantata Sudamericana ("South American Cantata": again with text by Félix Luna, 1972) and the Misa por la paz y la justicia ("Mass for Peace and Justice", 1981), with texts by Félix Luna and Osvaldo Catena.

Society of Authors and Composers of the Argentine Republic

Ramírez was first elected president of the Society of Authors and Composers of the Argentine Republic (SADAIC) in 1970, serving for two four-year terms. He was returned to the post in 1993 and remained in that capacity until ill health forced him to step down in 2004. At the time of his death he was still chairman of the organization's advisory board. and he was buried at Chacarita Cemetery in the Argentine Society of Authors and Composers' mausoleum on February 21, 2010. Singer Patricia Sosa described him as "the biggest folklore composer in History. [...] The whole world cries the death of such a beautiful gentleman".