The Spanish cellist was a pioneer of new music and founded the Iberian Cello Octet
The Spanish cellist Elías Arizcuren died on 3 September 2026 in Madrid, aged 83. The cellist was a pioneer of contemporary cello music over several decades.
Arizcuren was born in San Sebastián in 1943 and received his first musical instruction from his father, who was a cellist. He later went on to study with Gaspar Cassadó, André Navarra, and Sándor Végh.
He founded the Mendelssohn Trio in Amsterdam in 1968, which performed and recorded extensively over two decades. As an educator, he was primarily based in the Netherlands, teaching cello and chamber music at the conservatories of Amsterdam and Utrecht.
In 1989 he founded the Iberian Cello Octet, which he led for 20 years. The ensemble performed more than 60 premieres and commissions by composers such as Xenakis, Berio, Donatoni, Luis de Pablo, Gubaidulina, Denisov, Pärt, Boulez, Kagel, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass. Arizcuren also arranged works for the ensemble by Spanish and Latin American composers, and performed in many countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
He prepared a cello method dedicated to technique in 1985 and was the author of The Cello: Its Schools Through the Centuries in 1992, which contained a foreword by Mstislav Rostropovich. In 2011, Arizcuren donated a large portion of his music library to the Paris Conservatory and the Centre for the Dissemination of Contemporary Music in Madrid.
Upon his retirement, he received the title of Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau from the Dutch Royal House and was awarded Spain’s Commander’s Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise in 2021.
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