Life and Career
Luis Enríquez Bacalov was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 March 1933. Early on in his career, he composed scores for Spaghetti Western films, including Django, Storm Rider, also known as Il Grande Duello, and The Price of Power.
Bacalov has been nominated twice for Academy Award for Original Score—music adaptation or treatment— in 1967 for The Gospel According to St. Matthew, and winning the award for Il Postino in 1996.
In the early 1970s, he collaborated with Italian progressive rock bands such as New Trolls, on their 1971 album, Concerto grosso per i New Trolls, Osanna, on the band's second album, Preludio Tema Variazioni e Canzona releaased in 1972, and Il Rovescio della Medaglia for the 1973 release of their third album, Contaminazione.
In recent years, Bacalov has also composed significant works for chorus and orchestra, including his Misa Tango, a work setting a Spanish-language adaptation of the classic liturgical Mass to the tango rhythms of his native Argentina. The standard Mass text has been significantly truncated in accordance with Bacalov's desire that the work appeal to those of all Abrahamic faiths: Christians, Muslims and Jews. All references to Christ — except for the Lamb of God (Latin: Agnus Dei) — have been deleted. Credo, the third and longest text part of a sung Mass, has been reduced to its first strophe and part of the second one: "Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem cœli et terrae." (" I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth") plus "Amen" at the end. Misa Tango debuted in Rome with Plácido Domingo as solo tenor in 2000 and was later recorded by Deutsche Grammophon with Plácido Domingo (tenor), Ana María Martínez (mezzo-soprano) and Héctor Ulises Passarella (bandoneón).
Bacalov recently composed Cantones de Nuestro Tiempos (Psalms for our Times: The Cambridge Psalms), a commissioned work with text from the Psalms of David for baritone and soprano soloists, orchestra and chorus, which had its world premiere at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in spring 2006 by the Cambridge Community Chorus (William E. Thomas, Music Director). Two of his songs, "The Grand Duel (Parte Prima)" and "Summertime Killer", were used in Quentin Tarantino's film Kill Bill.
Bacalov was the first to write a triple-concerto for bandoneón, piano, soprano and symphony orchestra: Tango Music with Symphonic Proportions.
Presently he is the artistic director of Orchestra della Magna Grecia in Taranto, Italy.
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