Arturs Maskats is one of Latvia's most successful contemporary composers, with a long career stretching back to Soviet days. His orchestral composition, Tango, has been played internationally.

Maskats was born on December 20, 1957, in the town of Valmiera, Latvia. He attended the Latvian State Conservatory (now the Latvian Academy of Music), studying with Josep Vitols and Valentina Utkina. He wrote several major compositions, including Playlist (1979) and the Variations for piano (1980), while still a student. After graduating in 1982, he landed a job as music director at the Daile Theater, where he remained until 1997. Maskats has observed that his long tenure at the theater shaped his music even outside of the various film scores and works of theatrical incidental music he composed. His Cello Concerto appeared in 1992. From 1993 to 1996, Maskats served as chair of the Latvian Composers Union.

In 1996, Maskats became the artistic director of the Latvian National Opera, remaining in that post until 2013. Many of his best-known works date from this period, including the Salve Regina for mezzo-soprano, cello, and string orchestra (1996), Concerto grosso for violin, cello, percussion and string orchestra (1996), Mass for soprano, mixed choir and orchestra (1997-2002), Symphony for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra (2000), and Tango for orchestra. Tango has been especially successful; it was played by the Vienna Philharmonic under conductor Andris Nelsons at the orchestra's annual Summer Night Concert in 2022. Maskats has remained active as a composer, issuing an Accordion Concerto ("What the Wind Told Over the Sea") in 2021. That work was included, along with Tango, Cantus diatonicus (an orchestral work submitted for Maskats' university degree), and the tone poem My River Runs to Thee, on an album of Maskats works issued by the Ondine label in 2023. By that time, more than a dozen of Maskats' works were available on recordings in the West. ~ James Manheim, Rovi