The concert opens with Alberto Ginastera’s String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20, from 1948. Ginastera, universally acclaimed as Argentina’s greatest composer, was born in Buenos Aires in 1916 and died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1983. As a composer and an educator, Ginastera initially held a strong commitment to galvanizing an Argentinian musical identity. However, ongoing political and artistic conflicts with oppressive ruling regimes gradually caused him to spend the latter part of his life in the United States and Europe.