Castro, Juan José (EN)

Castro Juan José, *7 March 1895 Avellaneda, †5 August 1968 Buenos Aires, brother of José María, Argentine composer and conductor. Initially, he studied in Buenos Aires, then in Paris, where he was a student of V. d’Indy at Schola Cantorum (composition) and E. Risler (piano). After returning to the country, he founded Orquesta Renacimiento in 1928; until 1930, he performed at Teatro Colón, of which he became director in 1933; he also conducted orchestras in Havana (1947), Montevideo (1949–51), Melbourne (1952–53), and in 1956–60, he was the conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional in Buenos Aires, while also lecturing at the local Academy of Music. From 1959 to 1964, at the invitation of P. Casals, he served as dean of the conservatory in Puerto Rico.

Together with his brother José María, Castro was one of the founders of Grupo Renovación and, like him, he displayed neoclassical tendencies in his work, but his works enjoyed much greater success thanks to the extensive use of Argentine and Spanish musical folklore. Castro’s operas in particular became very popular; La zapatera prodigiosa was removed from the Teatro Colón bill after nearly 10 seasons in 1958 for political reasons, while Proserpina y el extranjero, staged at La Scala in Milan, won the 1^st Verdi Prize in 1952. As a conductor, Castro gave concerts on almost all continents, promoting mainly contemporary music.

Literature: R. Arizaga Juan José Castro, Buenos Aires 1963; E.A. Arias Juan José Castro’s “Corales criollos”, “Latin American Music Review/Revista de música latinoamericana” VII, 1986.