Sergio Ortega (composer)

Ortega died of cancer at the age of 65 on September 15, 2003 in Paris, four days after the 30th anniversary of the coup d'etat. His remains were repatriated to Chile.

Ortega composed a fair number of songs for use in the theater, one of his last works being the opera of fellow communist Pablo Neruda's epic poem Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta (Brilliance and Death of Joaquín Murieta). He also worked on a musical version of Neruda's Canto General with Gustavo Becerra, which was staged in 1970. In 1978, Ortega wrote a cantata of Neruda's "Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme, 1810. Poema sonoro para el padre de mi patria" ("Homage to the Father of my Country"), for the liberator of Chile. Ortega worked with his eldest son, Chanaral Ortega, on an operatic version of Pedro Páramo, the novel by Mexican writer Juan Rulfo.

In 1969, Ortega became a professor of composition in the Conservatory. In his classes and master classes in composition took part: Gustavo Baez, Mirtru Escalona-Mijares, Christine Groult [fr], Adolfo Kaplan, Sergey Kutanin, Arthur Lavilla, Clem Mounkala, Chañaral Ortega-Miranda, Martin Pavlovsky, Claire-Melanie Sinnhuber and others. In 1970, he began to direct the university's TV station, Channel 9, which he continued until 1973. At the end of 1973, after the September 11 coup, Ortega fled to France, where he resided until his death. In 1978 Ortega visited the USSR, participated in the festival "Red Carnation". He was given permission to return to Chile in 1983, and did so several times. During his exile, Ortega directed L'Ecole Nationale de Musique, in Pantin, France.

Sergio Ortega Alvarado (February 2, 1938 – September 15, 2003) was a Chilean composer and pianist.