Osvaldo Pedro Pugliese (Buenos Aires, December 2, 1905 – July 25, 1995, Buenos Aires) was an Argentine tango musician. He developed dramatic arrangements that retained strong elements of the walking beat of salon tango but also heralded the development of concert-style tango music. Some of his music, mostly since the 1950s, is used for theatrical dance performances. In Buenos Aires, Pugliese is often played later in the evening when the dancers want to dance more slowly, impressionistically and intimately. Personal life His father, Don Adolfo Pugliese (1877–1945), pushed him to work harder; his mother, Aurelia Terragno (1880–1947), often whispered to her son while he was practicing, ¡Al Colón! (To the Colón!), referring to Buenos Aires' famous Teatro Colón, where only the country's finest artists play. His other brothers Adolfo Vicente and Alberto Roque were violinists. He was married two times, to María Concepción Florio and to Lydia Elman. His first wife died in 1971, and he had one daughter, Lucela Delma "Beba" Pugliese (b. 1939), a pianist in her own right. Orquesta Osvaldo Pugliese In 1918 he left primary school to work as a print graphic artist. His father finally convinced him to take classes with the teacher Antonio D'Agostino, at the Conservatorio Odeon. He wrote his first tango, Recuerdo, in 1924, when he was 19. Two years later, when it was finally recorded, it became a classic. 'La yumba' (1946) is another famous and most popular Pugliese's tangos compositions. In 1939 he formed his orchestra as a cooperative and made his debut at Café El Nacional (980 Corrientes Avenue – "Cathedral of Tango") on the 11th of August, 1939. The orchestra toured the former Soviet Union in 1959 (eighty cities in three months – sometimes playing two or three shows a day) and also China (twenty-eight cities in another month), Chile (1990), Mexico, Columbia (1980), Peru, Cuba (1984, 1988, 1992), Japan (1965, 135 shows in five months; 1979, 1989), the U.S. (stopping in Chicago in 1979), the Middle East, France (1984), Portugal, Spain (1985; 1988 playing in Madrid, at Teatro Albéniz with the singer Joan Manuel Serrat, and Barcelona), Belgium, The Netherlands (with Astor Piazzolla in Amsterdam, 29 June 1989), Finland and almost all South and Central American countries: Uruguay (1987, Solís Theatre in Montevideo). For his work the maestro received high cultural distinctions, including from the Argentine, French and Cuban governments. Teatro Colón concert (1985) At age 80,