Enigmatic – mostly because he lived a short time and tended to be footloose – Juventino Rosas is considered the greatest of Mexican composers writing melodic dance music. Born in January 1868 AD in Santa Cruz (the town was later renamed Santa Cruz de Juventino Rosas), Juventino was a violinist who began his career playing in street bands in Mexico City around 1875. His talents came to the attention of wealthy patrons, who sponsored Juventino in the National Conservatory of Music … twice. But Rosas left the school in 1885 and again in 1888 without taking the final examination.

It was here that Rosas began composing, among his pieces the popular waltz 'Sobre las Olas' and mazurka 'Acuérdate'. In the late 1880s unconfirmed reports had Rosas a member of a military band, and in 1891 he was supposedly playing in the region of Michoacán as an itinerant violinist. It is known that in 1893 he joined the Tipica Mexicana orchestra that toured America and took part in the World Exposition in Chicago, winning a number of gold medals. (Musically, Chicago was quite exciting during the great fair, for Sousa’s Band was playing daily at the exposition and Scott Joplin was pounding out ragtime in the speakeasies.)

Rosas continued to compose music, infusing each piece with a Latin flavor: polkas, mazurkas, schottisches, and other dance works. Eventually his body of work numbered around 50 compositions. In 1894 he joined an Italian-Mexican ensemble touring the southern United States and Cuba, but he fell ill and was left behind in Surgidero de Batabanó. There, as a result of spinal myelitis, he died at the age of 26. In 1939, the remains of Juventino Rosas were returned to Mexico City, where they were interred in the “Rotunda of Illustrious Men.”