Daniel Alomía Robles

Daniel Alomía Robles (3 January 1871 – 17 July 1942) born in Huánuco, Peru. He was a Peruvian composer and ethnomusicologist. He is best known for composing the song El Cóndor Pasa in 1913 as part of a zarzuela—a musical play that alternates between spoken and sung parts—of the same name. This song was based on Andean folk songs and is possibly the best known Peruvian song, partly due to the worldwide success that the melody obtained when it was used by Simon and Garfunkel as their music for "El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)", although that song has different lyrics.

Daniel Alomía Robles was born in Peru in the city of Huánuco on January 3, 1871. His father, a French immigrant, was Marcial Alomía and his mother was Micaela Robles.

Alomía Robles said in an interview in 1942 that his first exposure to music was when he was six years old and his mother took him to hear mass in Huánuco and he began to sing along with the chorus. Alomía Robles said that he had a good ear and could reproduce any sound that he heard and that he took special pleasure as a child in singing the indigenous songs of Peru.

Daniel Alomía Robles attended primary school at La Mineria in Huánuco and moved with his family to Lima, Peru in 1882. It was while living with an uncle in Lima at the age of 12 that Alomía Robles first heard musical theatre.

Lima in the early twentieth century was filled with musical theatre and many well known musicians made their home in Lima. Alomía Robles discovered that the theatre needed extras in the chorus line and offered himself so he could hear the music for free and learn the operettas of that period.

In Lima, Alomía Robles studied at the college Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Alomía Robles' early interest in music was encouraged there by his teachers Manuel De la Cruz Panizo and Claudio Rebagliatti. Alomía Robles says that Rebagliatti took him under his wing and offered to teach him music if Alomía Robles would help o Rebagliatti in his concerts.

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