From Spain and Cuba

Manuel Canales (1747-1786) was born in the Spanish city of Toledo. He studied music with Jaime Casellas, director of the Toledo Cathedral Choir. He was said to have excelled as a cellist and bassist. Eventually, around 1770, he obtained employment at the court of the Duke of Alba in Madrid. It was in Madrid that he encountered the music of Boccherini and Haydn, both of whom are said to have had some influence on his style. Canales is thought to be the first Spanish composer to have penned string quartets.

Ignacio Cervantes (1847 – 1905) was a Cuban pianist and composer who achieved fame and recognition in his native country. Cervantes is best known for his considerable influence in blending various aspects of creole musical culture with that of Cuban music for a totally unique and appealing sound tableau.  A child prodigy, he was taught by pianist Juan Miguel Joval, later by composer and tutor Nicolás Ruiz Espadero in 1859, and by the visiting American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Gottschalk encouraged Cervantes to study at the Conservatoire de Paris (1866–1870) under Antoine François Marmontel and Charles-Valentin Alkan, where he was awarded first prizes in composition (1866) and harmony (1867). 

Born in Seville, Joaquín Turina Pérez (1882-1949) was a Spanish composer of classical music. He studied in Seville as well as in Madrid. He lived in Paris from 1905 to 1914 where he took composition lessons from Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris and studied the piano under Moritz Moszkowski. Like his countryman and friend, Manuel de Falla, while in Paris he familiarized himself with the impressionist composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy, whose music had a profound influence on his compositional practice.