Miguel Ángel Estrella

Miguel Ángel Estrella ( born July 4, 1940 in San Miguel de Tucumán ) is an Argentine classical pianist.

Life

Miguel Ángel Estrella was born on July 4, 1940 in the province of Tucumán in northern Argentina and grew up in the village Vinara. He began at the age of twelve to play the piano. At eighteen, he was taken in Buenos Aires at the National Conservatory, where he among other things, was taught by Erwin Leuchter. From 1965 he studied in London and Paris, where he was among other things a student of Vlado Perlemuter, Yvonne Loriod, Marguerite Long and Nadia Boulanger. Back in Argentina, he was active in the Peronist movement and were unpaid lessons and concerts for the poor and underprivileged. After the military coup of 1976 and its inclusion in a blacklist in 1977, he fled to Uruguay, where he was kidnapped on 15 December 1977 as one of the victims of Operation Condor by plainclothes military, imprisoned and tortured. After an international campaign mainly by world-renowned artists and intellectuals, led by Yehudi Menuhin and supported by human rights organizations, the UN, UNESCO and the Vatican, he was first transferred to an official prison and eventually released on 13 February 1980. He could leave for France where him political asylum and were granted French citizenship. Since then he stands up for human rights and the dissemination of music as a means for the defense of human dignity. To this end he founded on 10 December 1982, the Human Rights Day, the international organization Música Esperanza to German music of hope. You should all people, especially the poorest gain better access to music. In early 2000 he founded the Orchestra for Peace, an ensemble of musicians from Israel and Arab origin, which first appeared in 2002. Since 1981 he holds lectures on music analysis, performance, chamber music and the evolution of the musical language of Bach to Fauré.

Honorary appointments and awards

• Knight of the Legion of Honour (1985 )
• UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Culture of Peace and tolerance through music since 1989
• Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1990 )
• Nansen Refugee Award (2000)
• Argentine National Culture Award ( Premio Cultura Nación ) (2007 )

Works

• Jean Lacouture: Música para la esperanza. Ediciones de la Flor, Buenos Aires, 1985, ISBN 9,505,159,226th