Rosa

Rosa Balcells Llastarry

Barcelona , 28 de març de 1914
Barcelona , 9 de novembre de 1997

Performer i Teacher

Harpist

Daughter of Joan Balcells García and sister of Maria Teresa Balcells. She began her music studies at the age of ten at the Escola Municipal de Música de Barcelona under Frederic Alfonso, Margarida Orfila and harp under Dolors Sànchez. In 1926, she won a scholarship from the Maria Patxot i Rabell Foundation which allowed her to access the École Normale de Musique in Paris where she studied the French harp technique for two years under Micheline Kahn and Georges Dandelot.

She returned to Barcelona as Pau Casals’s protégée and made her debut in 1930 with the Pau Casals Orchestra on a tour of Catalonia. Composers such as her teacher Frederic Alfonso, Joan Altisent and Joan B. Lambert composed music for her instrument.

She carried out important pedagogical work at the Marshall Academy and as a harp professor of the Conservatori Municipal de Música, consolidating a modern harp school. In 1989, together with some of her students, she founded the Catalan Association of Harpists.

Her discography includes music of the Renaissance and the Spanish Baroque.