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He was born in San Sebastián in 1956. He got a degree in physical sciences at the University of Navarre. His vocation and early musical intuition were channelled by the founder of the San Ignacio Choir, Padre Garayoa, who he would substitute years later at the front of the group. However, before this he would study musical studies at the San Sebastián Conservatory with Choirmasters like Francisco Escudero and Tomás Aragüés. He would complete his training by studying different courses in choral conducting abroad.
His relationship with Padre Garayoa's Choir, which he directed between 1980 and 1988, was very successful both within the Basque Country and outside of it. He notably extended the group's repertoire and regularised their recordings policy, in particular within the religious polyphony area, and at the same time he took it to the Santander Festival, the Cuenca Musical Week, and abroad to the Chigiana Academy in Siena. With him at the head the San Ignacio Choir received first prize in the Tolosa Choral Groups Contest on various occasions. At the same time, Sainz Alfaro carried out important pedagogic work in the Guipúzcoa Choirs Federation, where today he still directs courses aimed at new classes of musicians in the speciality.
In 1974 he had his first contact with the "Orfeón Donostiarra", which he entered as a baritone. Throughout the eighties he collaborated closely with the head of the group, Antxon Ayestarán, and he soon become his assistant. He was named sub-director, and contributed to the preparation and assembly of numerous new works and helped to promote a still timid expansion policy.
After Ayestarán's sudden death, he became leader of the Choir in 1988. Bruckner's Mass in "fa", Oedipe by Enesco, The death of the Bishop of Brindisi by Menotti, Oedipus Rex by Stravinsky, Mors et Vita by Gounod, Eves by Rachmaninov, Redemption by Franck, Symphony No. 2 by Mendelssohn or Geroncio's Dream by Elgar are some of the scores that have entered the repertoire of the Donostiarra group over the last few years.
This feverish activity shows impulse and is reflected in the base of the modern image of the group, which is becoming more and more known outside of our country. It shows the disposition and clarifies its current choirmaster's point of view, which very recently has begun promising work at the front of different orchestras, such as the Latvia National Philharmonic, the Orquesta de Radiotelevisión Española, the Orquesta de Euskadi, the Russian National Orchestra, the Istanbul Symphonic, the Philharmonia Pomorska and the Sofía Opera National with which he has revised, together with the "Orfeón" that he leads, a good part of the most committed symphonic-choral repertoire.
Radio Nacional de España awarded Sainz Alfaro the Premio Ojo Critíco of music in 1992.
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