Jose Halac is an Argentine-American composer whose music has concentrated in recent years on the merging of western techniques of composition with popular musics, voices and indigenous singing from South America and the rhythms of northwest Argentina, resulting in a new and avant garde world music. Halac received a 1994 National Endowment for the Arts grant to write a song cycle, a 1998 New York State Council for the Arts grant, seven ASCAP Standard Awards, the 1996 International Music Council-UNESCO Rostrum Award, as well as several Meet the Composer Grants. The Breaking of the Scream is based on a poem by Argentine poet Pablo Anadon and a traditional folk song from the Northwest of Argentina. The poem, originally in Spanish, is entitled "Seasons of the Tree" and is centered around the idea of the departure of the loved one and the painful remains of the sentiments no longer recognized (for full text see: www.SonicCircuits.com). The folk song describes the purely carnal and sexual desire of a man who compares himself to a tiger. These two ideas are merged with screams, chanting, drums, and electronic manipulation of these sources. After my very own experience, I can describe this piece as THE ultimate homage to divorce."