The gain in Spain

Since Sarasate, string players in Spain have not been so good,’ confides violin pedagogue Zakhar Bron as he talks to me during a break from teaching at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid. It’s a stereotype whose accuracy is hard to deny – in string playing terms, Spain punches below its cultural weight, fielding few internationally known players. A survey of Spanish orchestras from a decade ago showed that the majority of players came from outside the country. The struggle to redress this is at the very root of the foundation of the Reina Sofía school, and the vision of one very special lady.

That lady (marchioness to be precise) is Paloma O’Shea, the school’s founder. A pianist herself, in 1972 she started the Santander International Piano Competition but was disappointed by the results: ‘I asked, “What happened to the Spaniards?”, because they never got past the first stage. But we have talent in Spain!’ This led her to start various masterclasses, but still not satisfied, she decided to set up a new institution. ‘I thought we should start a school of excellence, not very big, with the best teachers in the world.’ And that’s just what she did. With advice and support from luminaries such as Rostropovich and Menuhin, the school opened its doors in 1991 in the suburbs of Madrid. In 2008, having outgrown the 20 buildings that comprised the original institution, it moved to the specially designed premises on the Plaza de Oriente, bang in the middle of the city.

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