Osvaldo Golijov

Osvaldo Golijov stands among today’s foremost composers, distinguished by a singular voice that fuses an array of lineages: Western classical music across multiple eras, the new tango native to Argentina, folk idioms drawn from numerous lands, Jewish and Christian liturgical traditions, and present-day popular idioms. Partnerships with performers outside classical circles have further shaped his output.

Born December 5, 1960, in La Plata, Argentina, Golijov grew up as the child of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. His early years immersed him in contrasting sound worlds, among them the nuevo tango of bandoneón player and composer Astor Piazzolla, both secular and sacred Jewish music, and classical chamber repertoire. He began formal composition study in Argentina under Gerardo Gandini before relocating to Israel in 1983, where he worked with Mark Kopytman, whose scores incorporated chance procedures. Three years afterward he settled in the United States, completing a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania with George Crumb and attending classes at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts led by Lukas Foss and Oliver Knussen. An encounter with the Kronos Quartet in 1990 introduced him to the pluralistic currents of American contemporary music, after which his personal language coalesced. For that ensemble he wrote K'vakarat, scored for string quartet and Jewish cantor; the 1994 composition Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, written for klezmer clarinet and string quartet, attracted broad notice and prompted him to recast it for clarinet and orchestra. Additional collaborations arose with groups beyond classical boundaries, including the ensemble Taraf de Haïdouks, rock band Café Tacuba, and tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain.

The 2000 oratorio La Pasión Según San Marcos, commissioned by the European Bach Festival, marked Golijov’s decisive breakthrough. Recorded in 2002, the work received a Grammy Award. Throughout much of the following decade his name ranked among the most discussed in contemporary composition. In 2006 his opera Ainadamar (Fountain of Tears) was staged at Tanglewood by Peter Sellars; Deutsche Grammophon released a recording featuring Dawn Upshaw, Kelley O’Connor, and Jessica Rivera in the principal roles, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus conducted by Robert Spano. That album earned Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording and Best Contemporary Composition. Sidereus, an orchestral score honoring astronomer Galileo Galilei, received its premiere in 2010, yet critics Alex Ross and Tom Manoff noted correspondences to Barbeich, a piece by occasional Golijov collaborator Michael Ward-Bergeman. Commissioned as a twenty-minute work, the finished score lasted only nine minutes. Golijov rejected accusations of plagiarism, explaining that he and Ward-Bergeman had created the material together for an unused film score and that Ward-Bergeman had known of his subsequent use. Following these events Golijov ceased composing for a decade, later attributing the silence to depression. Several prominent commissions, among them one from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, were withdrawn when he did not deliver the promised scores. He returned in 2020 with the voice-and-ensemble song cycle Falling Out of Time, setting texts by writer David Grossman; the Silkroad Ensemble, another frequent Golijov partner, recorded the piece.