Isabel Aretz

She was educated at the National Conservatory of Music and Performing Arts, studying pedagogy, piano with Rafael González and harmony, counterpoint and composition with Althos Palma.

After completing her initial studies, Aretz became a senior lecturer at the National Conservatory and began work as an ethnomusic researcher and composer.

In the next decade, she collected and recorded traditional music, traveling in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia and Peru.

[1] In 1966 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to record native melodies in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Central America.

After her husband died in 1992, she was appointed a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Argentina, and she returned to San Isidro to live and work until her death in June 2005.