Amancio Jacinto Alcorta

Amancio Jacinto Alcorta (August 16, 1805 – May 3, 1862) was an Argentine composer, policy maker and politician.

Amancio Jacinto Alcorta was born in Santiago del Estero, Argentina, in 1805. His father, a prosperous merchant from Vizcaya, Spain, was the colonial city's Postmaster, at the time. He was sent in 1817 to a school operated by the Franciscan Order and, in 1820, to the College of Montserrat, where he was taught music by flutist José María Cambeses. He began composing in 1822 and in 1825, attended a local performance of Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville (its first in Argentina).

Alcorta enrolled at the University of Córdoba, then the most important in the newly independent Argentina. Before graduating, he was elected in 1826 to the Argentine Congress for his native Santiago del Estero Province, a post he resigned from for not being of sufficient age to hold the office. Following the advent of the Argentine Confederation, Santiago del Estero Governor Antonio Deheza appointed him in 1830 as his province's Minister, a diplomatic post with the difficult task of representing each province's respective interests vis-à-vis the Confederation's paramount figure, Buenos Aires Province Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas. He was offered the post of Minister of Salta Province by Governor José Güemes, in 1831, though Güemes' overthrow a few months later cut the experience short. He then married Coleta Palacio, with whom he had nine children.

Alcorta devoted the ensuing years to music composition. A prolific composer, he created numerous waltzes, minuets, nocturnes and contra dances, as well as numerous pieces of chamber music for piano and flute. Among his numerous works of sacred music, he published The Agony, a canto for tenor, baritone and organ, for Good Friday observations in 1843; the majority of his compositions from this period were lost, however.

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