Sergio Ortega Alvarado (February 2, 1938 – September 15, 2003) was a Chilean

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

Biography

Ortega was born in

Antofagasta Antofagasta () is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2015 census, the city has a population of 402,669. After the Spanish American wars ...

, Chile. He studied composition with Roberto Falabella and with Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt in the National Conservatory at the

University of Chile The University of Chile ( es, Universidad de Chile) is a public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

. After graduating, he worked in the Institute of Musical Extension and was a sound engineer for six years in the university's experimental theater, Teatro Antonio Varas. Ortega was a force for the leftist movement in Chile. Not only did he compose President

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...

's electoral theme song, " Venceremos" (We shall triumph), he was also the author of the worldwide anthem of popular resistance, " ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!" (The people united will never be defeated!). He was also the composer of the anthems of the

Partido Radical The Radical Party (Spanish: ''Partido Radical'') was a Chilean political party. It was formed in 1863 in Copiapó by a split in the Liberal Party. Not coincidentally, it was formed shortly after the organization of the Grand Lodge of Chile, and ...

(Radical Party), the Juventudes Comunistas (Communist Youth), and the Brazilian

Central Única dos Trabalhadores Central Única dos Trabalhadores ( en, Unified Workers' Central), commonly known by the acronym CUT, is the main national trade union center in Brazil. History CUT was formed on 28 August 1983 in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, during the Fi ...

(United Workers' Central). He also turned Salvador Allende's political plan, embodied in the texts of Julio Rojas, into an album of songs called ''Canto al Programa'', performed by

Inti-Illimani Inti-Illimani (; from Quechuan ''Inti'' and Aymara '' Illimani)'' are an instrumental and vocal Latin American folk music ensemble from Chile. The band was formed in 1967 by a group of university students and it acquired widespread popularity in ...

. Ortega composed some of the seminal works of the movement known as the

Nueva Canción Chilena Nueva is the Spanish feminine form of the word for "new" and may refer to: * Isla Nueva, an uninhabited island in Chile * The Nueva School The Nueva School is a private school, with two campuses—the lower and middle school in Hillsborough, ...

(New Chilean Song), a fusion of rhythms and styles with a social conscience. In his work, one can find

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

s, cantatas,

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

s, songs, and

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

s. Among his most famous works are the songs "El monte y el río" (The mountain and the river, lyrics by

Nicolás Guillén Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista (10 July 1902 – 17 July 1989) was a Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.

), and "Les deux mers" (The two seas), and a trilogy about the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

. Ortega composed a fair number of songs for use in the theater, one of his last works being the opera of fellow communist

Pablo Neruda Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...

's epic poem ''Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta'' (Brilliance and Death of Joaquín Murieta). He also worked on a musical version of Neruda's ''

Canto General ''Canto General'' is Pablo Neruda's tenth book of poems. It was first published in Mexico in 1950, by ''Talleres Gráficos de la Nación''. Neruda began to compose it in 1938. "Canto General" ("General Song") consists of 15 sections, 231 poems ...

'' with Gustavo Becerra, which was staged in 1970. In 1978, Ortega wrote a cantata of Neruda's "Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme, 1810. Poema sonoro para el padre de mi patria" ("Homage to the Father of my Country"), for the liberator of Chile. Ortega worked with his eldest son, Chanaral Ortega, on an operatic version of ''

Pedro Páramo ''Pedro Páramo'' is a novel written by Mexican writer Juan Rulfo about a man named Juan Preciado, who promises his mother on her deathbed to meet Preciado's father for the first time in the town of Comala, only to come across a literal ghost t ...

'', the novel by Mexican writer

Juan Rulfo Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno, best known as Juan Rulfo ( ; 16 May 1917 – 7 January 1986), was a Mexican writer, screenwriter, and photographer. He is best known for two literary works, the 1955 novel ''Pedro Páramo'', and th ...

. In 1969, Ortega became a professor of composition in the Conservatory. In his classes and master classes in composition took part: Gustavo Baez, Mirtru Escalona-Mijares, , Adolfo Kaplan, Sergey Kutanin, Arthur Lavilla, Clem Mounkala,

Chañaral Ortega-Miranda Chañaral Ortega-Miranda (born 1973) is a Chilean composer of classical music. Born in Arica, Chile, in 1973, Ortega-Miranda was exiled in France for the first six years of his life. After studying musical theory and composition in Buenos Aires fr ...

, Martin Pavlovsky, Claire-Melanie Sinnhuber and others. In 1970, he began to direct the university's TV station, Channel 9, which he continued until 1973. At the end of 1973, after the September 11 coup, Ortega fled to France, where he resided until his death. In 1978 Ortega visited the USSR, participated in the festival "Red Carnation". He was given permission to return to Chile in 1983, and did so several times. During his exile, Ortega directed L'Ecole Nationale de Musique, in

Pantin Pantin () is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. In 2019 its population was estimated to be 59,846. Pantin is located on the edge of the city of Paris and is mainly formed by a plain ...

, France. Ortega died of cancer at the age of 65 on September 15, 2003 in Paris, four days after the 30th anniversary of the coup d'etat. His remains were repatriated to Chile. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ortega, Sergio 1938 births 2003 deaths Chilean activists Chilean composers Chilean male composers Chilean Marxists Chilean socialists Male musical theatre composers Nueva canción musicians People from Antofagasta Deaths from cancer in France Chilean pianists 20th-century pianists Male pianists 20th-century male musicians