Isaac Noel Nicola Romero

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Distinguished Cuban guitarist and pedagogue.

Isaac Nicola was born in La Habana. He began studying guitar in 1931, under the guidance of his mother, professor Clara Romero de Nicola. With her he graduated as a professor in 1934, at the Conservatorio Laura Rayneri, sponsored by Pro-Arte Musical. Nicola's diploma and that of Augusto Comdom Sastre were the first officially issued by the Ministry of Education in Cuba.

In the period between 1934 and 1937, Nicola was a student of harmony and analytical history of music at the Conservatorio Bach, under María Muñoz de Quevedo. In 1939 he traveled to Paris to study with guitarist, researcher, and pedagogue Emilio Pujol, who in turn had been a student of the renowned Francisco Tárrega. During this period he also received harmony lessons from Jion Gallon.

Alongside his activity as a student, he gave concerts at the Circle Tárrega and at the Asociación Daniel Fantra. At that time, other important guitarists lived in Paris, such as Miguel Llobet, Regino Sáinz de la Maza, and Andrés Segovia.

Isaac Nicola had received in his beginnings the influence of his mother's technique, which had taught him to play the guitar with his right hand, plucking the strings with his nails. By contrast, Emilio Pujol was based on producing sound through the support of the fingertips when playing, without using nails.

Although Nicola did not initially modify his playing technique, while receiving Pujol's lessons and motivated by the velvety sound that Pujol drew from the guitar, he chose to adopt his teacher's style.

With Emilio Pujol he studied the vihuelistas of the 16th century: Luis de Milán, Luis de Narváez, and others, whose knowledge he completed in the library of El Escorial, where he deepened his understanding of the history of the guitar. He also frequented the Cercle Tárrega, which his teacher presided over, where guitar enthusiasts gathered.

In the company of Pujol, Nicola visited Londres and Niza. In 1939 he moved to Biarritz, and later settled in San Juan de Luz, where he remained until 1940, when he moved to Spain to settle in Zamora. From there he traveled to Madrid, where he became friends with Regino Sáinz de la Maza, an eminent interpreter who at that time was preparing in Barcelona, for its premiere—which Nicola attended—the Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquín Rodrigo, whom the Cuban had met in Paris when the work was concluding. In Madrid he continued his studies with Pujol and, furthermore, became acquainted with guitarist Daniel Fortea.

In 1940 he returned to La Habana, but shortly after traveled to Nueva York, where he reunited with his good friend, Cuban guitarist José Rey de la Torre, a resident of that city at the time. With De la Torre, Nicola gave a concert in La Habana in 1941. His performance was then described as being of fine and refined style, announcing an attentive artist on the path to perfect maturity.

During those days, he followed technically the school of his professor Emilio Pujol. However, he felt that the instrument lost sonority without the intervention of the nails of the right hand when playing, and began to use them again, but supporting them, as his teacher Pujol did. The result of the combination of the two ways of playing became, from a technical point of view, the founding act of what many have defined as the Cuban school of guitar.

In 1942, Isaac Nicola began his professional teaching career giving classes, replacing his mother, at Pro-Arte Musical. Six years later he joined as auxiliary professor at the Conservatorio Municipal de La Habana, and in 1951 became titular professor of the institution, of which he would eventually become director.

Parallel to this teaching work, he continued giving concerts, until in 1957 he appeared publicly for the last time, premiering the piece Danza característica, composed by his student Leo Brouwer. From then on and for more than fifty years, he devoted himself entirely to teaching.

Between 1960 and 1966 he directed the former Conservatorio Municipal de La Habana, renamed as Conservatorio Amadeo Roldán. From 1963 to 1976 he was a professor at the Escuela Nacional de Música (Cubanacán). In this latter year, when the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) was founded, he moved to work there, until he officially retired in 1979.

In 1977, Isaac Nicola released a first edition of his Método de Guitarra, a procedure that gathered his pedagogical experience, developed from the school of Francisco Tárrega. Since then, his method has been the prevailing one in academic guitar instruction in Cuba. In the following twenty years, and with the collaboration of guitarists such as ISA professor Martín Pedreira, Nicola carried out numerous modifications, substitutions of materials, and technical contributions in order to enrich the teaching method he had created.

Until the last days of his life and at an advanced age, he was a member of the organizing committee of guitar festivals held in Cuba. Thus, for example, in 1982 he was one of the founders of the Concurso y Festival Internacional de Guitarra de La Habana, serving on the jury from then until his death.

Founder of the Escuela Nacional de Arte (ENA), the Instituto Superior de Arte, and what not a few catalog as the Cuban School of Guitar, Isaac Nicola received, among other recognition for his work, the status of Professor of Merit in Music of the Instituto Superior de Arte (1982), the National Prize for Artistic Teaching (1996), and the National Prize for Music (1997).

Master Isaac Nicola built a bridge between guitar teaching in Spain and Cuba, which makes him an irreplaceable figure in the Cuban musical landscape. His legacy is not restricted to the contribution he made to the study of guitar, but is also realized in the fidelity he maintained to the pedagogical tradition.

He was also a pioneer in the use of replicas of historical instruments for the performance of ancient music in Cuba. Testimony to this practice of his is the vihuela built in the 1930s for guitarist Emilio Pujol, which Isaac Nicola used in concerts dedicated to the old Spanish repertoire.

Source: EnCaribe.org