Music was always there, waiting

At the age of eight I walked into a music school for the first time, not knowing that afternoon would change my life. I discovered that dots and lines on a staff could give names to sounds, and that idea fascinated me. I started piano at the same time, and very quickly knew exactly what I wanted to be: an orchestra conductor. My teacher suggested I join the children's choir, and my passion grew until I was singing as a soloist.

Then puberty arrived, along with a voice change, a move to a new city and a new school that slowly extinguished my dream of becoming a conductor. Even so, I finished my intermediate piano studies, though I drifted away from formal music. I never left entirely: I played keyboards in bands and orchestras, recorded jingles and backing vocals for records and TV shows, wrote songs on commission. Music was still there, waiting.

At 23, not knowing what to study, I enrolled at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. I joined the university choir and orchestra and, with no formal vocal training, found myself singing as a soloist. A year later, the choir's vocal coach, Lola Bosom, saw something in me and proposed more serious lessons. Shortly after, she encouraged me to audition for the Escuela Superior de Canto de Madrid.

That's when I left my job at the Fundación Yamaha Música and organised my entire life around a single goal: I studied in the mornings, from 8am to 2pm, and sold mobile phones at a shopping centre in the afternoons, from 4pm to 10pm, every day of the week. I mapped out a path: first chorus work at companies like RTVE or the Liceu de Barcelona, then small roles with small companies, then principal and comprimario roles at more important theatres. Until I debuted as Vidal in Luisa Fernanda at the Teatro de la Zarzuela and as Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with the Ópera Studio del Teatro Real. I was 31 when I could finally make a living from singing.

Since then I have performed at theatres such as the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Teatro Colón in Bogotá, the Gran Teatro Nacional de Lima, and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. It seemed my career could only keep growing.

Years later I became a father — an adoptive father of wonderful children — and that changed my priorities. I turned down contracts abroad to stay close to them, because life is about choosing wisely what comes first. Today I keep singing, close to my family, living this profession as it has always been for me: a way to be happy.