ADIÓS AL AMIGO JORGE ANTONIO
Don Jorge
Jorge Antonio era un gran argentino, un patriota, un hombre universal. Desayunar con él en su residencia de la calle Paraná de Buenos Aires, Argentina, ubicada frente a la Plaza Libertad – y lo hice durante muchísimos años comulgando el mismo sentimiento por la patria, sin distinciones partidarias -, significaba asomarse a los secretos de la actualidad universal.
Amigo de Salvador Dalí, del generalísimo Francisco Franco, del periodista y embajador Manuel Aznar Zubigaray, de su hijo, Manuel Aznar Acedo y de su nieto, José María Aznar, de Julio Iglesias Puga y de su hijo, el famoso cantante Julio Iglesias, y de poderosos e influyentes lideres políticos de los Estados Unidos y del mundo (muchos problemas diplomáticos de la Argentina fueron solucionados por su secreta intervención, sin importarle el color político de quien estuviera a cargo de la administración del país). La enumeración sería enormemente larga e inútil, pues en verdad, solo alcanzó estado público una sola de sus facetas, la que lo vincula con quien fuera tres veces presidente constitucional de la República Argentina, Juan Domingo Perón.
Mas allá de esa circunstancia, sobrevive para mí, personalmente, la franqueza de su trato, incapaz de ocultar su pensamiento. No rechazó el dialogo con nadie – lo sé por mi experiencia personal - , pero cuando lo abría, señalaba sin hesitación lo que realmente pensaba. Alguna vez, en mi presencia, trató a un militar de cobarde. Vi que el imputado palidecía, pero luego aclaraba: “Usted dice lo que mi mujer también me ha dicho”. Es que en sus manos estuvo la posibilidad de cambiar la historia de la Argentina y no tuvo el coraje de hacerlo.
En varias oportunidades ofreció pagar la deuda externa argentina con capitales árabes. En algunos casos hubo respuestas y en otros nó. En una de esas oportunidades, como gesto de buena fe, entregó en la embajada argentina en España el cheque con el importe de la comisión que le correspondería con destino a las obras sociales argentinas.
Jorge Antonio era un hombre de palabra. Valió una vida conocerlo. MM
ARGENTINA, SALTA: Falleció Juan Antonio Urrestarazu Pizarro, defensor de la tradición argentina y fervoroso hispanista
Por Andrés Mendieta
Juan Antonio Urrestarazu Pizarro
Ninguna tarea resulta tan embarazosa para un escriba de abandonar sus sentimientos para derramar sobre el papel las virtudes de quien, por espacio de más de cincuenta años de amistad, demostró renunciamientos, consagrarse con predilección hacia el necesitado, sumisión a todas las
pasiones, disciplina y vigilancia inalterable. Pues bien, para extractar la bella personalidad que adornaba la figura de quien me estoy refiriendo es la de Juan Antonio Urrestarazu Pizarro, fallecido el 28 de abril pasado, meses antes de cumplir sus 85 años.
Urrestarazu Pizarro –conocido popularmente como “Buby”- a su nombre no se lo llevó la muerte aquella tarde del sábado 28 de abril, a las 14 horas, después de haber ingresado a su hogar, lugar escogido para entregarse a los brazos del Señor.
Buby no fue un político ni un orador fogoso, capaz de despertar el fervor y el entusiasmo ante el público que en varias oportunidades lo escuchó disertar. Prefería transmitir su pensamiento durante la tertulia, en las charlas íntimas y con trato coloquial ya sea sobre: filosofía, literatura, música, pintura, historia y hasta aspectos de la situación política que atravesaba el país.
Su trayectoria se vio jalonada por todo tipo de responsabilidades. A los 24 años compartió el estudio jurídico con su padre –de igual nombre, profesión y, además, un escogido profesor de Literatura Española en el Colegio Nacional-, jefe de Asuntos Jurídicos que heredó de su progenitor en el Banco de la Nación Argentina.
Propietario de destacadas virtudes, talento y capacidad lo impulsaron a participar como asesor y director de empresas nacionales e internacionales.
Este gran defensor del ser nacional y, como así, fervoroso hispanista llegó a fundar y presidir durante muchos años el Instituto Salteño de Cultura Hispánica, a su regreso de España luego de realizar estudios e investigaciones en universidades del Viejo Mundo. En reconocimiento de sus actividades culturales fue distinguido con premios y títulos que los guardó en su intimidad sin ninguna ostentación. Así era Buby.
Aunque nacido en Córdoba hizo todos sus estudios en el Colegio Belgrano de Salta y obtuvo su título de abogado en la “Docta” capital cordobesa.
Con los años conformó, con un equipo de amigos, una sociedad bajo el título de “Radiodifusora Salta” para participar en una licita-ción para la explotación de una estación de radio comercial, llegando a ocupar su titularidad, siendo secundado por Agustín Pérez Alsina, Arnaldo Etchart, Raúl Anchezar, Miguel Cornejo Murúa y el comodoro Juárez, entre otros. Desde esas funciones volvió a demostrar Urrestarazu con palabras sencillas y de gesto amable su talento –época llena de dificultades y conflictos laborales- para superar la antinomia entre los cuatro gremios que aglutinaba este medio de comuni-cación.
Durante la gestión de “Radiodifusora Salta” no se registró ningún caso de cesantía ni de movimientos de protestas por razones económicas.
Una vez retirado de estas últimas actividades se recluyó en su hogar dejando pasar las horas sustraído a la lectura de libros espirituales y proveyendo de sus consejos y sabiduría a quienes se lo solicitaban.
Buby desde su juventud tenía siempre el precepto evangélico “amar a los otros como así mismo”. Lo vimos enjugar muchas lágrimas, aliviar muchos pesares, llevar la paz y serenidad a muchos hogares. Y él ejercía lacaridad, el amor a su prójimo en las seis maneras de que habla el discípulo predilecto de Jesús: saber amar, aconsejar, socorrer, sufrir, perdonar y edificar. También, silenciosamente, sorbió el amargo sabor de la traición.
El doctor Urrestarazu Pizarro seguirá desde la distancia viviendo entre los que lograron apreciar de cerca todos los quilates de su ta-lento y toda la virtud atesorada en su espíritu superior.
Val McComie; Barbados's Ambassador to the U.S.
Ambassador Val McComie
was an Organization of American
States executive
Val McComie, 87, a Barbados diplomat who served as the Caribbean island nation's ambassador to the United States and as the No. 2 executive at the Organization of American States, died May 4 at the Washington Home hospice. He had complications from a stroke in 2002.
Barbados, a major sugar producer and tourist destination, became independent of England in 1966. Mr. McComie, a former schoolteacher, began his diplomatic career the next year.
Early on, he held a concurrent assignment in Washington as ambassador to the United States and the OAS, a social and economic development organization. During this period, he negotiated Barbados's entry into the OAS and the Inter-American Development Bank.
After serving as ambassador to Brazil and Venezuela, Mr. McComie was OAS assistant secretary-general, the No. 2 position, from 1980 to 1990, when he retired.
Over the years, he encouraged engagement in human rights and environmental concerns. He told The Washington Post in 1980: "The Caribbean is being seen in Cold War ideological terms, and this may detract from the real problems of the Caribbean, which are basic needs -- jobs, social services, housing."
Valerie Theodore McComie was born in Trinidad and raised in Barbados. He was a modern languages graduate of the University of London and did postgraduate work in French civilization at the University of Bordeaux and in political science at the University of California at Los Angeles.
He taught modern languages at secondary schools in Barbados, Arizona and Ghana before joining the diplomatic service.
He was a member of the Catholic Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington, his city of residence.
His first wife, Margery Clarke McComie, died in 1956.
Survivors include his wife of 32 years, Elia Garcia McComie of Washington; a daughter from his first marriage, Gail McComie of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and two sisters.
(Source The Washington Post)
Argentine Guitarist Cacho Tirao; Virtuoso Crossed Genres, Oceans
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 7, 2007; B08
Musical ambassador Cacho Tirao, who enjoyed showing off when performing, made technically tricky pieces seem as easy as "Chopsticks.".Photo Credit: By Walter Astrada -- La Nacion
Cacho Tirao, 66, an Argentine guitar virtuoso whose wide travels made him one of his country's leading musical ambassadors, died May 30 at Argerich Hospital in Buenos Aires after a stroke.
A radio star as a child, Mr. Tirao rose to greater prominence as a teenager as he won important engagements as a soloist.
His most enduring early association came with the Astor Piazzolla Quintet, which he joined in the late 1960s. A signature of Mr. Tirao's playing was the unpredictable and exciting chord changes encouraged by Piazzolla, the modern tango composer, bandleader and bandoneon player whom Mr. Tirao regarded as a musical mentor.
During a career that featured him on 36 records as a solo artist, Mr. Tirao remained exceedingly versatile. He shifted among tango, jazz, samba, folklore, classical, pop and Jewish music -- though his pop orchestration of "Hava Nagila" arguably lacked the warmth he tried to cultivate after some early critics accused him of being a brilliant but "cold" player.
In performance, he enjoyed showing off. He made technically tricky pieces, such as the left-handed dazzler "Estudio Para la Mano Izquierda," seem as easy as "Chopsticks."
As a composer, Mr. Tirao was responsible for numerous tangos, milongas and sambas. His most remembered works include "Le Petit Tango," "Tercer Tiempo" and "Teresa, Mi Renacer." The last, named in honor of his wife, loosely translated means "Teresa, you are my renewal." He also wrote the larger-scale composition "Conciertango Buenos Aires" for guitar and orchestra, which premiered in 1985 in Belgium.
Oscar Emilio Tirao was born April 5, 1941, in Berazategui, in the Buenos Aires province. He learned guitar at 4 from his father, a classical guitarist, who along with Andres Segovia became one of his earliest influences.
Mr. Tirao began appearing on the radio at age 6 and a few years later made his debut as a concert performer. By 16, he was working as a soloist with the orchestra of the Teatro Argentino de la Plata, a theater in the capital city of Buenos Aires province, as well as with the popular jazz and tango bandleader Rene Cospito.
As his career progressed, Mr. Tirao backed an array of vocalists, including the visiting Americans Josephine Baker and George Maharis. He also performed with Argentine pianist and bandleader Osvaldo Tarantino as well as bandoneon player Rodolfo Mederos before winning a three-year engagement with Piazzolla.
With Piazzolla's blessing, Mr. Tirao left the quintet to work as a soloist, and Piazzolla helped write some of his early arrangements. After Mr. Tirao's debut album as a soloist, "Mi Guitarra, Tú y Yo" (1971), he went on to collaborate with, among others, Flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia, who became of one his closest friends.
Mr. Tirao became a fixture on Argentine television and began a tireless schedule of concerts around the world. He developed a broad repertoire of music and expertise on stringed instruments, including banjo, lute and charango.
His recordings featured not only his own compositions but also works by Piazzolla, classical works by Bach and Brahms and audience favorites such as "Concierto de Aranjuez," "Juego Prohibido" and the theme from "Zorba the Greek." He won over such admirers as Brazilian guitarist and composer Baden Powell, whose works he also played to much acclaim.
If there was a criticism of his music, it was that he tended to get carried away with his technical prowess.
The popular Argentine folklore musician Atahualpa Yupanqui pointed out such excesses, using a colorful expression that Mr. Tirao perhaps had too many fingers on his hands.
Mr. Tirao accepted the observation with grace and later added that at the start of his solo career he "was worried too much about not making mistakes. I tried to make it perfect, like a machine, and I sacrificed expression for virtuoso playing," he told the Argentine newspaper Clarin.
"One day, I was going to [the vacation town of] Mar de Plata, listening to myself in the car and thought, 'How horrible, how many notes! And the feeling, where is it?' "
He later described having accomplished an infusion of sentiment most successfully on Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria" because of the number of ticket buyers who told him they cried every time he played it.
Mr. Tirao underwent a religious conversion to evangelical Christianity in the mid-1980s after his son was killed. His daughter, Alejandra, then 17, accidentally shot Gabriel, 14, with a gun both teenagers thought was a toy.
In 2000, Mr. Tirao suffered an embolism while performing in concert, and it took him six years to recover the strength he thought he needed to play. His final album, "Renacer," was released in January and features his daughter on vocals.
(Source The Washington Post) |
