Osvaldo Golijov

Osvaldo Noé Golijov (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈɡolixof]) (born December 5, 1960)[1] is an Argentine composer of classical music.
Osvaldo Golijov was born in and grew up in La Plata, Argentina,[1] in a Jewish family that had emigrated to Argentina in the 1920s from Romania and Russia.[2][3]

Golijov's mother was a piano teacher, his father, a physician. He was raised "surrounded by chamber classical music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, and the new tango of Ástor Piazzolla," according to his official website. He studied piano at the local conservatory in La Plata and studied composition with Gerardo Gandini.

In 1983, Golijov moved to Israel, where he studied with Mark Kopytman at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy. Three years later, he moved to the United States. There he studied with composer George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania before receiving his doctorate.[1]

Golijov is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship[1] and the Vilcek Prize, among other awards and commissions.[1] He collaborates closely with conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya; vocalists Luciana Souza and Biella de Costa; cellists Yo-Yo Ma, Alisa Weilerstein, Maya Beiser and Matt Haimovitz; the kamancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor and percussionist Jamey Haddad; ensembles including the Atlanta Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, Silk Road Ensemble and eighth blackbird; the artist Gronk, playwright David Henry Hwang, and directors Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Sellars. He has been composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Merkin Hall in New York, the Spoleto Festival USA, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Music Alive series, Marlboro Music School and Festival, Ravinia Festival, and several other festivals. In 2010, he composed a commissioned work for 35 American orchestras titled Sidereus, honoring the seventeenth century Italian astronomer Galileo.[4] and dedicated to an orchestra industry official, Henry Fogel. For the 2012-13 season, Golijov held the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall in New York.[5]

Golijov is Loyola Professor of Music at the College of the Holy Cross at Worcester, Massachusetts, where he has taught since 1991.[6]

He married architect and designer Neri Oxman in 2011. He has three children from a previous marriage.