Spanish Composer Marisa Manchado Dies at 70 in Spain Train Crash

By Elena Vasquez

Composer, pianist, teacher and writer Marisa Manchado died on Oct. 28, 2026, at the age of 70. Her brother confirmed that she was among the 69 people killed in the train crash in Urda, Spain. She was traveling to Seville to take part in a university symposium at the Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación.

Manchado was one of Spain's most decorated living composers at the time of her death. She won the Premio Nacional de Música 2024 for her opera "La Regenta," the country's top music honor. The jury said at the time that Manchado's opera is "an updated reading of a classic of universal literature, through which she gives voice to an iconic female character, which underlines the composer's long commitment to equality."

In plain terms: she had just received Spain's highest musical recognition two years before her death.

Who was Marisa Manchado?

Manchado was born on July 7, 1956. She studied at the Colegio Estilo and the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid. She earned a degree in Psychology at the University and Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid, then completed a Maîtrise and DEA in Music Sciences-Computer Assisted Composition at the Université Paris VIII-Saint Denis.

Her academic career ran on two parallel tracks:

• Deputy Principal of the Teresa Berganza Conservatory of Madrid until 2017, where she had taught since 1994 — a 23-year tenure.
• Associate professor at the Faculty of Education of the Autonomous University of Madrid from 2001 to 2004.
• General Deputy Director of Music and Dance of the INAEM-Ministry of Culture from 2007 to 2008.

She moved between the classroom and government, shaping Spanish music policy as well as training its performers.

What did she compose?

Manchado wrote more than 150 works spanning pedagogical music, chamber music, vocal music, symphonic music, opera and electroacoustics. Major commissioners included the Spanish National Orchestra and Choir, Teatro Campoamor in Oviedo, Teatro Real de Madrid, Teatro de la Zarzuela, the Guanajuato Festival in Mexico and the Chard Festival in the UK.

Notable works include:

• "The Pink Tree," for choir, symphony orchestra and soprano.
• "La Cité des dames," for female choir and piano.
• "La Regenta," produced by the Teatro Real in Madrid.
• "Un mar de hielo (A Sea of Ice)," an orchestral suite drawn from her third opera, "La Regenta."

At the time of her death, she was working on her fourth opera, "Medea." That unfinished score now stands as the open question of a career that produced opera at a steady pace across three decades of professional recognition, and its fate — completion by another hand, archival preservation or performance of existing material — will rest with her estate and the institutions that commissioned her.