Daniel Oyarzabal's relationship with music, the result of a natural drive and initiation in Bach when he was only six years old, has taken him across continents. As a harpsichord soloist and organist, the organ being his main instrument, he has played in concerts on such important stages as the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, the Düsseldorf Opernhaus, the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn, the Lyon Auditorium, the Palau de Les Arts Reina Sofía and the Palau de la Música in Valencia, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Teatro Real and Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, the St. Florian Stiftsbasilika in Austria, and the Cathedrals of Moscow, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Florence, León and Seville, just to mention a few. We should highlight his concert on three organs at the Oudekerk in Amsterdam together with Matthew Imbruno and Master Gustav Leonhardt. As an organ and harpsichord continuist he regularly collaborates with ensembles such as La Ritirata, Euskal Barrokensemble, Intonationes or Nereydas, as well as with large Spanish choral symphonic groups such as the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, the Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid, the Orquesta y Coro RTVE, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León. He also has a special interest in new contemporary creation by premiering at international festivals of living Spanish composers. He has made numerous recordings for Glossa, Alia Vox Diversa, Medici TV, Austrian ORF, TVE, Telemadrid, Telecinco, Radio France and Radio Clásica-RNE. His latest CD, "Bolero. The Orchestral Organ", for the record label Odradek includes arrangements for organ and percussion of great symphonic works and has been received with great success both by critics and the public at large.

 

At the same time, from his early years Daniel Oyarzabal found another of his passions, jazz, participating very actively in projects, piano playing and as a performer on the Fender Rhodes piano, as studio musician, musical director and arranger for works by artists such as José Manuel Zapata, José Mercé, Pasión Vega, Marta Sánchez, India Martínez, Rocío Márquez, Paloma Berganza and Angela Cervantes. As for his pedagogical work he invests a great deal of enthusiasm in fostering the passion for classical music among young people and has been working for the last nine years on the development of his own musical teaching method for five to ten-year-old children.

 

Born in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain, 1972), he studied piano and percussion at the Conservatories of his hometown and Bilbao, graduating cum laude in harpsichord and organ. He later trained with the finest European professors mastering in organ, harpsichord and period instruments at the Conservatories of Vienna, The Hague and Amsterdam. Oyarzabal has been awarded the Special Press Award at the National Exhibition for Young Performers in Ibiza (1991), First Prize in Improvisation in the International Music Competition of Rome (1998) and Third Prize in the XIX International Organ Competition of Nijmegen, Holland (2002), the only Spanish organist awarded in the entire history of the contest.

 

At present he is the principal organist for the Orquesta Nacional de España, the organist of Getafe Cathedral in Madrid and professor of Composition of Contemporary Music at the TAI University School of Arts in Madrid. He is also the artistic coordinator of the famous "Bach Vermut" organ concert cycle of the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, organized by the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical, part of the Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música and whose formula has successfully brought thousands of citizens together around organ music.