Claudia Montero

Composer Claudia Montero wrote music rooted in South American traditional genres. She was a popular figure at the Latin Grammy Awards in the U.S. Montero was born on June 25, 1962, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was largely trained in her home country, attending the Alberto Ginastera Conservatory in Buenos Aires and studying piano, music education, and composition. A skilled pianist, Montero premiered many of her own works. In 2001, she moved to Valencia, Spain, due to the economic upheavals in Argentina known as the corralito. There, she continued her education, earning a master's degree in Aesthetics and Musical Creativity at the University of Valencia. She was also active as an educator in the Catalonia region, joining the faculty at the Conservatorio Superior Salvador Seguí in Castellón. Montero's works often drew on South American traditional music and were commissioned by a wide variety of orchestras, soloists, and chamber ensembles in South America, the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Her music has been performed by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Ireland, the City of Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra in South Korea, among many other groups. She received commissions from guitarist Wolfgang Weigel, pianist Allison Brewster, violinist Yi Fang Huang, and harpist Floraleda Sacchi. Chamber commissions included those from such groups as the American String Quartet, the Almus Quartet in Spain, and the Billroth String Quartet in Britain. Her music is often featured at festivals, and a major premiere was that of the Concierto en Blanco y Negro piano concerto at the Galway International Festival in 2017. Montero was richly honored at the Latin Grammy Awards, winning Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2014, 2016, and 2018 and Best Classical Album in 2018 for Mágica y misteriosa. She also won several Spanish recording industry awards. Her accordion concerto Vientos del Sur, influenced by tango music, was premiered in 2019 by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under conductor Vasily Petrenko. Montero died in Valencia on January 16, 2021. Several of Montero's compositions have been recorded, including, in 2023, her Suite de los Buenos Aires para piano y flauta on a recording by flutist Tanja Esther von Arx and pianist Natalia González Figueroa.
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