Ricardo Iznaola
Professor
Lamont School of Music
Students at DU’s Lamont School of Music know Professor Ricardo Iznaola as a world-class guitarist, concert artist, recording artist, composer and author. Most important, they know him as a gifted teacher and mentor.
Iznaola, who chairs the guitar and harp program and who directs Lamont’s conservatory program, brings a wealth of experience and a host of interests to his teaching.
Born in Cuba, Iznaola left that country with his family at age 11, one year after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. Before the fall of the Batista government, Iznaola’s father worked for an American company and traveled outside the country extensively. In fact, he was in Caracas, Venezuela, during the regime-changing upheaval.
“In his enthusiasm for what was happening, my father basically quit his job to come back to Cuba. A year later, we were out of there. … All the money we had was $12 and a bag of clothes. That’s all we could take out of Cuba,” Iznaola recalls.
The family moved first to Colombia and a year later to Venezuela, where Iznaola studied the guitar and grew accomplished enough to qualify for admission to Madrid’s Royal Conservatory, where he met his wife. In Spain, he studied privately with Regino Sainz de la Maza and eventually launched a performance career across Europe. Once his two sons were born, it became clear that he needed to trade the instability of a concert career for the reliable income of a teaching post.
Iznaola landed at DU in 1983 and since then has pursued what he considers an old-fashioned combination of teaching, concertizing, composing and publishing. The great composers, he explains, all performed and wrote, with one discipline informing the other.
“We have a false perception in modern times that you are a musician in one specialty. That didn’t satisfy me,” he explains. “I wanted to be one of those old-fashioned musicians.”
Iznaola’s latest work is a collaborative effort with Professor Mario Lopez of the computer science department. The two have devised—and will soon debut— an interactive Web site for training on the guitar. With exercises for every level of performance, Iznaola says, “you can train indefinitely on one particular issue.”
Iznaola, who chairs the guitar and harp program and who directs Lamont’s conservatory program, brings a wealth of experience and a host of interests to his teaching.
Born in Cuba, Iznaola left that country with his family at age 11, one year after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. Before the fall of the Batista government, Iznaola’s father worked for an American company and traveled outside the country extensively. In fact, he was in Caracas, Venezuela, during the regime-changing upheaval.
“In his enthusiasm for what was happening, my father basically quit his job to come back to Cuba. A year later, we were out of there. … All the money we had was $12 and a bag of clothes. That’s all we could take out of Cuba,” Iznaola recalls.
The family moved first to Colombia and a year later to Venezuela, where Iznaola studied the guitar and grew accomplished enough to qualify for admission to Madrid’s Royal Conservatory, where he met his wife. In Spain, he studied privately with Regino Sainz de la Maza and eventually launched a performance career across Europe. Once his two sons were born, it became clear that he needed to trade the instability of a concert career for the reliable income of a teaching post.
Iznaola landed at DU in 1983 and since then has pursued what he considers an old-fashioned combination of teaching, concertizing, composing and publishing. The great composers, he explains, all performed and wrote, with one discipline informing the other.
“We have a false perception in modern times that you are a musician in one specialty. That didn’t satisfy me,” he explains. “I wanted to be one of those old-fashioned musicians.”
Iznaola’s latest work is a collaborative effort with Professor Mario Lopez of the computer science department. The two have devised—and will soon debut— an interactive Web site for training on the guitar. With exercises for every level of performance, Iznaola says, “you can train indefinitely on one particular issue.”
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