Rafael Puyana
The Colombian harpsichordist Rafael Puyana was born in Bogotá on 14 October 1931. Beginning piano lessons at the age of six, he made his debut at the Teatro Colón when he was thirteen. From the age of sixteen, he was a piano student at the New England Conservatory in Boston, going on to study harpsichord with Wanda Landowska and composition with Nadia Boulanger.
As a harpsichordist, he first played in New York in 1957, in Boston in 1961 and in London in 1966. Federico Mompou and Xavier Montsalvatge dedicated works to him, and he performed with Menuhin, Stokowski and Segovia.
His students included Christopher Hogwood and Elizabeth de la Porte.
Puyana died in Paris on 1 March 2013, aged eighty-one.