Pedro Iturralde Ochoa (13 July 1929 – 1 November 2020) was a Spanish saxophonist,

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

teacher and composer.

Biography

Iturralde was born in

Falces Falces is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain. In Basque the town is called ''Faltzes''. It has a population of around 2500 inhabitants. It is well known for the famous "encierro del ...

on 3 July 1929. He began his musical studies with his father and performed in his first professional engagements on saxophone at age eleven. He graduated from the

Royal Conservatory of Music The Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM), branded as The Royal Conservatory, is a non-profit music education institution and performance venue headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1886 by Edward Fisher (musician), Edward ...

in Madrid, where he studied clarinet, piano, and

harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...

. He went on to lead his own jazz quartet at the W. Jazz Club in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, experimenting with the combined use of

flamenco Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, and making recordings for the

Blue Note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical co ...

label. In 1972 he undertook further study in harmony and arranging at the

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. He taught saxophone at the Madrid Conservatory from 1978 until his retirement in 1994. He appeared in Spain and abroad as a soloist with the

Spanish National Orchestra The Orquesta Nacional de España (Spanish National Orchestra) is a symphonic orchestra that is based in Madrid, Spain. History Although the orchestra originated as of 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, it was legally founded in 1940, by the mergin ...

under the baton of Frühbeck de Burgos, Celibidache, Markevitch, and others. When he was 20 years old he composed ''Czárdás'' for saxophone. He dedicated the present version of the work, orchestrated by his brother Javier, to a friend, saxophonist

Theodore Kerkezos Theodore Kerkezos is a Greek classical saxophonist. He is “…one of the most astounding performers of the day.” ''Gramophone'' (Editor’s Choice) Kerkezos performed and recorded the entire standard repertoire for solo saxophone with orchestra ...

. He made recordings with the renowned flamenco guitarists

Paco de Lucía Francisco Sánchez Gómez (21 December 194725 February 2014), known as Paco de Lucía (;), was a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer, and record producer. A leading proponent of the new flamenco style, he was one of the first flame ...

(Columbia YS-2072-H, 1967 and Hiaspavox, 1968), Pepe de Antequerra (Columbia YS-2072-H, 1967) and Paco Cepero (CBS, 1975). He also recorded with jazz vocalist

Donna Hightower Donna Lubertha Hightower (December 28, 1926 – August 19, 2013) was an American R&B, soul and jazz singer and songwriter, who recorded and released albums for the Decca and Capitol labels. Later in her career she was based in Europe, where sh ...

on her ''I'm In Love with Love'' album (Columbia, 1974) and arranged/conducted on her ''El Jazz y Donna Hightower'' album (Columbia, 1975). He died in Madrid on 1 November 2020.

References

External links

Iturralde, Pedro
Naxos profile

(in Spanish) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Iturralde, Pedro 1929 births 2020 deaths Spanish classical musicians Spanish jazz saxophonists Madrid Royal Conservatory alumni Academics of the Madrid Royal Conservatory 21st-century classical composers 20th-century classical composers Jazz tenor saxophonists Jazz soprano saxophonists Male classical composers 20th-century Spanish musicians 20th-century saxophonists 21st-century saxophonists 20th-century Spanish male musicians 21st-century male musicians Male jazz musicians People from Ribera Arga-Aragón