Rafael Talens Pelló composer

Rafael Talens Pelló (Cullera, province of Valencia, 9 September 1933 - Boadilla del Monte, province of Madrid, 25 April 2012) was a Spanish composer and music educator.

Rafael Talens received his early musical education from his father, a clarinet player in the Sociedad Instructiva Santa Cecilia de Cullera. He later studied clarinet (with Lucas Conejero), piano (with Leopold Magenti and José Roca), harmony and orchestral conducting (with José Férriz) at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Valencia.

At the age of 18, he sat a competitive examination to join the Banda del Jefe del Estado, in Madrid, and obtained the number 1 position in the clarinet speciality. He took advantage of his stay in the capital to further his education at the Royal Conservatory of Music, where he studied composition under the tutelage of the maestro Antón Garcia Abril, a discipline in which he obtained a distinction. At the end of the 1950s, Talens created the Orquesta de Rafael Talens de música ligera in Madrid, with which he accompanied singers such as Luis Mariano, Lucho Gatica, La Niña del Puerto and Juanito Valderrama, and performed compositions by Quintero, León and Quiroga. In this formation, Rafael Talens combined the tasks of clarinettist, pianist, conductor and arranger, as required. Speaking of this period, the composer said: "It was a real school of music that gave me a flexibility and creativity of great use".

In the early 1970s he won the post of full professor of harmony at the Valencia Conservatory of Music and devoted himself fully to teaching and composition. He taught at the Josep Melcior Gomis Conservatory of Music in Ontinyent. He retired in 2003. On 25 April 2012 he died of a stroke.