Carlos Païta was an Argentine orchestral conductor who was active in the second half of the 20th century. He was known for his passionate interpretations of works from the Romantic era. Païta was born in Buenos Aires in 1932, and he was encouraged to explore music from a very young age. His mother was an Italian singer and pianist who likely provided him with his earliest musical instruction. Later, he studied piano with Jan Neuchoff and composition with Jacobo Fischer, but he never attended a formal university. In his teens, Païta observed a series of concerts and rehearsals conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler in Buenos Aires. This experience inspired him to pursue a career as a conductor, which led him to study conducting with Artur Rodzinski. He worked as an assistant conductor from the late '40s until 1956, when he became a musical assistant at the Teatro Colón, and he had his conducting debut there later that same year. Païta remained in Buenos Aires until 1966, when he began conducting the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra in Germany. The following year, he was appointed permanent conductor of the Argentine National Radio Symphony Orchestra, and he moved to Europe in 1968 and started recording with the Decca label. He also won the Grand Prix du Disque for the 1968 album A Wagner Festival. Païta was in high demand as a guest conductor in Europe throughout the 1970s, and in 1978 he was awarded a second Grand Prix du Disque for his recording of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, with the London Symphony Orchestra. He made his U.S. debut in 1979 with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and around 1980 he formed the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in London. This ensemble included musicians from every major orchestra in London and was assembled specifically to record with Païta's Lodia record label, but he also took the group on tours beginning in 1982. In addition, he was invited by Mstislav Rostropovich to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., that year. He conducted Mahler's Symphony No. 9, and he returned in 1987 to conduct Bruckner's Symphony No. 4. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he continued working as a guest conductor in Europe, Russia, and Poland. In 2003, Païta moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where he spent his final years and passed away in 2015. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi