Alba Quintanilla

Alba Quintanilla (born July 11, 1944) is a Venezuelan composer, harpist, harpsichordist, pianist, singer, conductor, and pedagogue. Biography Quintanilla was born in Mérida, Mérida, and had her first contact with music through her parents, especially her father, Venezuelan painter, sculpturist, and pedagogue Luis Felipe Quintanilla Ponce. At age 10 she matriculated at the Escuela Superior de Música José Ángel Lamas, where she studied piano, harp, harpsichord, singing (soprano), composition, and conduction; her instructors there included Vicente Emilio Sojo, Raimundo Pereira, Juan Bautista Plaza, Gonzalo Castellanos Yumar, Evencio Castellanos, Cecilia de Majo, Evelia Taborda, Lidya Venturini, and Pablo Manelski. She continued her music studies at the Conservatory in Warsaw, Poland, during one of her sabbatical years (1970). There, she studied with conductor Ryszard Dudek and composer Witold Rudzinski. From 1982 through 1984 Quintanilla attended the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany, continuing her postgraduate studies in composition with Prof. Helmut Weindland. Quintanilla was the first woman to conduct the Venezuela Symphony Orches