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 Def ...

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 war ...

, 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 (Radical Party), the Juventudes Comunistas (Communist Youth), and the Brazilian Central Única dos Trabalhadores (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 C ...

. 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 poems,

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning o ...

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 libre ...

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 ...

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

. 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'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'' 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'', 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 t ...

. 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, 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 plai ...

, 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