Orchestra Conductor, Classical Cellist. Pablo Casals’ father was a parish organist and choirmaster, who gave him extensive musical instruction. In 1888 he enrolled in the Escola Municipal de Música, where he graduated with honors. In 1893, Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz heard him play and gave him a letter of introduction to the private secretary to María Cristina, the Queen Regent of Spain. He was asked to play at concerts in the palace and was granted a royal stipend to study at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. In 1895 he went to Paris, where he earned a living by playing in the theatre orchestra of the Folies Marigny. In 1896, he returned to Spain and received an appointment to the faculty of the Escola Municipal de Música in Barcelona and was principal cellist of Barcelona's opera house. In 1899, he played at The Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria. In 1899 he appeared as a soloist at Lamoureux Concerts in Paris, to public and critical acclaim. He toured Spain and the Netherlands from 1900 to 1901; in 1901-02 he made his first tour of the United States; and in 1903 toured South America. In 1904, he was invited to play at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt and made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York. In 1919 he organized the Pau Casals Orchestra and led it from 1920 until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Between 1939 and 1942 he made appearances as a cellist in the unoccupied zone of southern France and in Switzerland. In 1950 he resumed his career as conductor and cellist at the Prades Festival in Conflent, organized in commemoration of the bicentenary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach; he agreed to participate on condition that all proceeds were to go to a refugee hospital. In Puerto Rico he inaugurated the annual Casals Festival in 1956. He founded the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra in 1958, and the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico in 1959. He took part in a concert of chamber music in the White House in November 1961, at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy. In December 1963 he was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. He composed numerous works, including La Sardana, El Pessebre, and the "Hymn of the United Nations", conducting the latter’s first performance for the United Nations in October 1971. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, awarded him the U.N. Peace Medal in recognition of his stance for peace, justice and freedom. In 1973, he conducted the Jerusalem youth orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra; these were the last concerts he conducted. His memoirs were written by Albert E. Kahn, and published as Joys and Sorrows: Pablo Casals, His Own Story.