The orchestra director Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos died today at the age of 80. Clínica Universidad de Navarra at the age of 80. He was invested honorary doctor by the University of Navarra on January 29, 1994.

Born in Burgos in 1933, he studied piano, theory and composition at the Conservatories of Bilbao and Madrid and, later, conducting at the technical school in Munich, where he graduated "Suma cum Laude". He also received the award Richard Strauss. Rafael Frühbeck has been director of the Orquesta Nacional de España and the Düsseldorf and Montreal Symphonies, Director principal guest of the Washington National Symphony Orchestra and the Nippon Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo. He has also been director principal conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Rundfunk Symphony Orchester Berlin and General-Musikdirektor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He has conducted all the major American orchestras and has been the regular guest director of the Berlin, Munich and Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestras, several German Radio Orchestras and the five London orchestras.

As guest Director , he has conducted more than one hundred Symphony Orchestras around the world and has toured Europe and America. Rafael Frühbeck has recorded more than one hundred discs, some of which are considered classics, such as those dedicated to the complete works of Manuel de Falla. In 2010 the prestigious American magazine Musical America named him Director of the year.

On January 29, 1994 he was invested honorary doctor by the University of Navarra, in his speech he stressed the importance of finding the truth in music: "I have been lucky to know what my obligation is: to serve the interpreted work and its author as faithfully as possible, and to expose, even above the beauty, the possible truth that the composer has given us bequest. If I have had any small merit, it has been this: to search hard for that truth in the music I interpret and to expose it to the public in the best possible way".

Rafael Frühbeck, considered the most internationally renowned Spanish orchestra director , has died after a cancerous process, which forced his hospitalization since April at Clínica Universidad de Navarra. Gema Frühbeck, Rafael's daughter, director of laboratory of research Metabolic of the Clinic, has expressed her father's gratitude "to the Clínica Universidad de Navarra and to the professionals who always took care of his health. For him the Clinic has been the center of reference letter throughout his life. It was common to hear him say that if he had reached the age of eighty it was because of the care he had received at the Clinic".