Zabaleta, Nicanor

b. 1907, San Sebastián; d. 1993, Puerto Rico

   Harpist

   After studies in San Sebastián and Madrid, Zabaleta went to Paris, studying the harp with Marcel Tournier, and composition with Marcel Samuel Rousseau and Eugene Cools. Zabaleta has arguably done more than any other musician this century to revive and promote interest in the harp as a solo instrument and establish its repertoire, rescuing forgotten compositions for harp by Cabezón, Bach, Handel and Beethoven. He even contributed design innovations, developing an eight-pedal version of the harp. Composers as diverse as Rodolfo Halffter, Joaquín Rodrigo (who arranged his guitar concerto, Concierto de Aranjuez, for the harp at Zabaleta's request), Darius Milhaud and Villa-Lobos have written works specially for performance by him. Zabaleta continued to perform into the 1970s with orchestras all over the world, in Israel, Warsaw, London, Berlin, Salzburg and Philadelphia. His farewell concert tour took place in 1988, when he was 80, and included concerts in Paris, Naples, Palermo, Tel Aviv and Madrid. In 1982, he was awarded the National Prize for Music in recognition of his contribution.

   EAMONN RODGERS