Lalo Schifrin’s final symphony, Rod Schejtman named Argentine cultural ambassador

One year after its world premiere, the symphony composed by Lalo Schifrin and Rod Schejtman entitled “Long Live Freedom,” which was declared a Work of National Cultural Interest by the Presidency of the Republic of Argentina, has been awarded the Marca País seal — the official distinction with which Argentina presents itself to the world. The distinction extends to the concert’s entire programme: Schifrin’s Hollywood scores, Schejtman’s award-winning works and the symphony co-written by both composers.

The recognition lends official status to a project already underway: Schejtman – the first and only symphonic co-author Schifrin chose in his entire career – is leading, together with the late composer’s family, the official world tour in tribute to the maestro, marking the first anniversary of his passing. The programme will revive that final concert the two shared, bringing this historic repertoire to the leading concert halls of the Americas and Europe.

Fusion of two worlds

In 2023, Schejtman became the Worldwide Winner of the WorldVision Composers Contest in Vienna – a competition widely known as “The World Cup of Classical Music” – created to find the new Mozarts of our era. Representing Argentina against the finest symphonic composers from 32 countries, he composed three original works over the two-year competition, which involved more than 60 institutions – including Steinway & Sons, Bechstein and the New York Philharmonic. Word reached Schifrin at his home in Beverly Hills.

Lalo Schifrin – the Argentine-US composer behind the Mission: Impossible theme, winner of five Grammy Awards, six Oscar nominations and an Honorary Academy Award – was then 91 and, in seven decades composing for Dizzy Gillespie, Clint Eastwood and Hollywood’s major studios, had never shared authorship of a symphonic work. “I was moved by the emotional depth of his compositions,” the maestro said in his last published interview, “and that same longing for my country led me to propose that we compose a work dedicated to Argentina together.”

Schejtman left his life in Buenos Aires and moved to Los Angeles. “When I was preparing to leave, Lalo told me: ‘Don’t worry. Come to Los Angeles. I was once in your same situation,’” Schejtman recalls. “At the time I didn’t fully understand what he meant. Later I realised he was talking about Gillespie…”

In the late 1950s, Dizzy Gillespie – the mentor of Miles Davis – heard Lalo Schifrin play in a Buenos Aires club. “Are those arrangements yours?” he asked. “Yes,” Schifrin replied. “Would you like to live in the United States?” It was the invitation that changed his life.

“The same invitation, 60 years apart,” Schejtman says. “We composed six days a week. I would arrive at the studio with my ideas and Lalo would have his sketches ready on paper. And many times, almost as if by magic, one’s music was the continuation of the other’s. The connection we achieved was extraordinary!”

“We spent hours in the studio talking about our favourite composers: what we admired about them, what we wanted to carry forward. We watched every one of his Hollywood films and analysed his scores together. But Lalo was far more than a film composer – he was the last link in a chain that traces back to the founders of 20th-century music and the only direct gateway to the great secrets of music, passed down from generation to generation.”

For six months, the two composers worked side by side in Schifrin’s studio – the same room, the same Bösendorfer piano where the Mission: Impossible theme and most of the maestro’s iconic scores had been written. They composed more than two hours of music to distill 40 final minutes. Schifrin shared his handwritten scores, filled with decades of personal annotations and the same French-language books he had studied at the Paris Conservatory under Olivier Messiaen.

The concert they designed together bore a name that captured everything: “The Fusion of Two Worlds: Lalo Schifrin + Rod Schejtman” – two Argentines separated by half a century, united by their homeland, by their devotion to the principle of liberty, and by a shared message of musical hope.

The night Argentina heard its symphony

The symphony premiered on April 11 and 12, 2025, at Buenos Aires' Palacio Libertad, with the Argentine National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Swiss maestro Emmanuel Siffert, who spent three months alongside Schejtman preparing the 100-piece ensemble for the work.

The first half of the concert featured Schifrin’s most iconic film and television scores performed by symphony orchestra: from Mission: Impossible – originally a CBS series in 1966 and later the Tom Cruise film franchise – to the Dirty Harry suite composed for Clint Eastwood, Bullitt and The Cincinnati Kid with Steve McQueen, and the Golden Globe–winning Mannix theme. The second half opened with Schejtman’s ‘La Magia Di Vivere,’one of the works with which he won the WorldVision Composers Contest, continued with the world premiere of the co-written symphony, and closed with the Mission: Impossible main theme as an encore.

Both nights played to full houses – more than 2,000 people attended each performance. In the video screened before that packed hall, Schifrin spoke to camera about the collaboration: “This experience of working with Rod Schejtman was extraordinary, because it brought back deeply cherished memories of the time I worked with Daniel Barenboim and with Juan Carlos Paz and of everything I’ve done musically.” And then, the line that came to define the evening: “What he brought out of me… he made it even greater than I ever did.”

When the curtain fell on the second performance, something unprecedented happened. At midnight on April 12, immediately after the national anthem, Argentina’s national television and radio networks broadcast the symphony’s full 40 minutes to the entire country, uncut, simultaneously on television and radio.

Year of recognition

The impact of that night was quick to cross borders. Since the premiere, the symphony has been covered by more than 200 publications in 35 countries and 15 languages – among them Variety, The Guardian, France24, El País, AP News and The Times of India – with multiple outlets hailing Schejtman as Schifrin’s “artistic heir.”

Peter Anthony Holder, the Canadian broadcaster who had interviewed Schifrin in 1996 during the premiere of the first Mission: Impossible film, described the symphony as “the most important work of Lalo Schifrin’s life.” Nearly 30 years later, in 2025, Holder interviewed Rod Schejtman about his collaboration with Schifrin and the piece aired simultaneously on more than 10 radio stations across Canada, the United States and New Zealand.

On June 25, 2025, the British Embassy chose the symphony as the centrepiece of its diplomatic gala at the Teatro Colón, celebrating 200 years of relations between the United Kingdom and Argentina – a bicentennial dating back to the 1825 treaty, through which Great Britain became the first European power to recognise Argentine independence. In attendance were Argentine government ministers, members of the diplomatic corps, and leading figures from the country’s business and cultural establishment.

Schejtman performed the first public rendition of the symphony for solo piano – the work as it sounded when he and Schifrin were in the studio, hearing it in their minds before an orchestra ever played it – and spoke about Schifrin and the collaboration between them.

The following day, June 26, Lalo Schifrin passed into eternity. A direct disciple of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, he left behind a final wish: that his last work travel the world in the hands of Rod Schejtman, the only symphonic co-author he chose in his entire career.

Cultural Ambassadors of Argentina

The Marca País, conferred by the Argentine Presidency, is a state policy created to position Argentina on the global stage by highlighting its identity, its culture and the quality of what it produces. With this recognition, this unprecedented artistic alliance transcends the strictly academic realm to become an official emblem of Argentine talent for export.

“The first thing I felt was an enormous pride that our works represent Argentina on the world stage,” said Schejtman. “And I immediately thought of how happy Lalo would be – as he used to say, we had formed a small family, and this symphony meant the world to him. Together with his family, we are taking it to the world and fulfilling his final wish.”

With the institutional backing of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the world tour – organised together with the Schifrin family and under the artistic direction of Rod Schejtman – will trace a geographical biography across the leading concert halls of the Americas and Europe.

This June 21, Lalo Schifrin would have turned 94. The legendary composer is no longer with us, but the safekeeping of his musical testament was left in the hands of Schejtman, whom the century-old Bach Society hailed as “one of the foremost figures in the contemporary academic world in the Americas.” Through him, Schifrin’s legacy will continue to resonate on stages for generations to come.

– PERFIL

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