Remembering Waldo de los Rios

Born Osvaldo Nicholas Ferrara Guttierrez on September 7, 1934 in Buenos Aires Argentina. His father was a musician and his mother a folk singer. He studied composition and arranging at the National Conservatory of Music. He was inspire by electronic music and formed a group called “The Waldos” which crossed folk music with electronic sounds. Later he turned to film scoring beginning in 1966 with the Euro-western “Savage Pampas”. For this score he was given and award by the Argentine Cinemagraphic Association. He traveled to the U.S.A. In 1958 and then on to Spain in 1962. He was known for transforming European classical music into pop music. He was married to actress Isabel Pisano who would write about de los Rios in her autobiography 'El Amado Fantasma' (2002). De Los Rios also wrote the scores for “A Town Called Hell” (1971), and “Bad Man's River” (1972). Waldo suffered from depression all his life and comitted suicide on March 28, 1977 in Madrid, Spain while working on “Don Juan Tenorio”. Today we remember Waldo de los Rios on what would have been his 75th birthday.