Juan José Castro was an Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 composer and conductor.

Born in Avellaneda

Avellaneda

Avellaneda is a port city in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the seat of the Avellaneda Partido, whose population was 328,980 as per the ....

, Castro studied piano and violin under Manuel Posadas

Manuel Posadas

Manuel L. Posadas was a leading Afro-Argentine musician from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.-Biography:Manuel L. Posadas was born in Buenos Aires in 1860, the son of a musician, journalist and soldier Manuel G. Posadas and Emilia Smith. He was the brother of Carlos Posadas, who...

 and composition under Eduarno Fornarini, in Buenos Aires. In the 1920s he was awarded the Europa Prize, and then went on to study in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 at the Schola Cantorum

Schola Cantorum

The Schola Cantorum de Paris is a private music school in Paris. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent d'Indy as a counterbalance to the Paris Conservatoire's emphasis on opera...

 under Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...

 and Édouard Risler

Édouard Risler

Joseph-Édouard Risler was a French pianist.- Biography :Risler was born in Baden-Baden of a German mother and an Alsatian father. He studied under Louis Diémer, Théodore Dubois and Émile Descombes at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1883 to 1890...

. Returning to Buenos Aires in 1925, he was named conductor of the Renacimiento Chamber Orchestra in 1928 and the Teatro Colón in 1930. From 1939 to 1943 he was a professor at the Buenos Aires Conservatory.

Castro's international career began in the 1940s. In 1947 he conducted the Havana Philharmonic, and the Sodre Orchestra in Uruguay

Uruguay

Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

 in 1949. In 1952-53 he was the conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Melbourne, Australia. It has 100 permanent musicians. Melbourne has the longest continuous history of orchestral music of any Australian city and the MSO is the oldest professional orchestra in Australia...

 (then known as the Victorian Symphony Orchestra) in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. He returned to the Americas and conducted the National Symphony in Buenos Aires from 1956-1960. From 1960 to 1964, he was director of the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico

Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico

The Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico is a public institution of higher learning located in the historic Miramar a town in San Juan, Puerto Rico...

.

Castro's brothers, José María and Washington, were also both composers. Juan José Castro married the daughter of the composer Julián Aguirre. He died in Buenos Aires in 1968, aged 73.

Works

Note: This list is incomplete

• Violin Sonata, 1914
• Cello Sonata, 1916
• Piano Sonata No. 1, 1917
• A una madre, 1925
• Symphony No. 1, 1931
• Biblical Symphony, 1932
• Mekhano, ballet
  Ballet
  Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
  
  , 1934
• Sinfonia Argentina, 1934
• Symphony No. 3, 1936
• Symphony No. 4, 1939
• Piano Sonata No. 2, 1939
• Offenbachiana, ballet, 1940
• Piano Concerto, 1941
• String Quartet, 1942
• La zapatera prodigosa opera
  Opera
  Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
  
   after Federico García Lorca
  Federico García Lorca
  Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
  
  , 1943
• Martin Fierro, cantata
  Cantata
  A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
  
  , 1944
• El Llanto de las Sierras, 1947
• Corales Criollos No. 1 & 2, piano, 1947
• Proserpina y el extranjero (Proserpina
  Proserpina
  Proserpina or Proserpine is an ancient Roman goddess whose story is the basis of a myth of Springtime. Her Greek goddess' equivalent is Persephone. The probable origin of her name comes from the Latin, "proserpere" or "to emerge," in respect to the growing of grain...
  
   and the Foreigner), opera after Omar del Carlo, 1951
• Bodas de sangre (Marriage of Blood), opera after Lorca, 1952
• Corales Criollos No. 3, orchestra, 1953
• Symphony No. 5, 1956
• Epitafio en ritmos y sonidos, chorus and orchestra, 1961