Juan José Mosalini

Historical background

Born on 29 November 1943, Juan José Mosalini belonged to the last generation of bandoneonists trained by the great Buenos Aires orchestras: he played with Osvaldo Pugliese, Leopoldo Federico and Horacio Salgán. He described the collapse of tango activity from the 1970s onwards, brought about by the events surrounding the dictatorship, and the disappearance of many orchestras. He left Argentina in 1977 for France, where he spent the rest of his life; he died there on 28 May 2022.

His contribution lies as much in teaching as in performance. In the early 1980s he sat on a French Ministry of Culture commission creating the teaching certificate for accordion and bandoneon, and spent a year drawing up its musical and literary repertoire. In 1987 Bernard Cavanna invited him to open a bandoneon class at the Edgar Varèse national music school in Gennevilliers, which he shared with César Stroscio: the first official place of instruction for the instrument. Student ensembles formed there, out of which came, in 1991, the Grand Orchestre de Tango on a professional footing - an orquesta típica in the manner of the golden age, which would allow Europe to rediscover tango's great era, that of 1940 to 1955. "When I created my Grand Orchestre de tango in France," he said, "tango was almost unknown, except among musicians." In parallel, from the early 1980s and for more than ten years, he led a trio with pianist Gustavo Beytelmann and double bassist Patrice Caratini.

Source: "Entretien avec Juan José Mosalini," Lettre d'information du CMTRA no. 69, https://www.cmtra.org/Nos_actions/Ressources/943_Entretien_avec_Juan_Jose_Mosalini ; Sergio Arboleya, "Murió Juan José Mosalini, referente del bandoneón y del tango," Página/12, 29 May 2022, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/424952-murio-juan-jose-mosalini-referente-del-bandoneon-y-del-tango/ ; Noël Blandin, "Juan José Mosalini," in Brève histoire du tango argentin, La République des Lettres, 1 October 2024, https://histoiredutango.fr/mosalini.php (accessed 31 July 2026).