This is first recording for Challenge Classics by the very highly-rated Al Ayre Español and its conductor Eduardo López Banzo - and the beginning of a long term partnership. The sacred cantatas performed on this Hybrid SACD are by José de Nebra, the ‘father’ of Spanish opera and Zarzuela.

The musical director Eduardo López Banzo was born in Zaragoza in 1961. In the operatic field he is considered to be one of the most important specialists in Handel’s music for theatre. López Banzo, who founded Al Ayre Español in 1988, was awarded the Spanish National Music Prize in 2004 in recognition of more than 20 years of musicological rigour and performance excellence.

José de Nebra was an important figure in the Spanish musical scene in the middle part of the 18th century. The Nebra family worked primarily in the province of Zaragoza, but José, who was born in Calatayud and died in Madrid, achieved fame and influence on a much wider scale. In the second decade of the 18th century, the 20-year-old José Nebra was already working as organist and composer in the royal court of Madrid. He was esteemed as a composer of stage music and wrote numerous songs for the royal chapel's religious celebrations. Over a period of time, several of these, characteristic of solemn sacred palatine ceremonies, found their way to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The four cantatas featured on this CD were discovered among hundreds of forgotten manuscripts in the vaults of the cathedral in Guatemala City.