Ramon Ferranac

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Ramón Ferreñac (also seen as Ferrenac or Ferranac in some modern sources) was a Spanish organist and Classic-era composer, born in Zaragoza in 1763 and dying there on 8 December 1832. He was the son of Manuel Ferreñac, a bassoonist and entonador del órgano (in charge of bellows and practical work around the organ) at the Basílica del Pilar, so his musical formation was rooted from childhood in Zaragoza’s rich cathedral environment. He almost certainly studied in one or both of the colegios de infantes (choir schools) attached to the city’s cathedrals, where his father also taught. Ferreñac began his professional career as maestro de capilla and organist at Huesca Cathedral, gaining enough reputation that in 1785 the chapter of his native Zaragoza called him back to serve as assistant organist at El Pilar without requiring a competitive examination. In August 1786 he was promoted to first organist, succeeding Tomás (or Joaquín) Soriano, and he held that post at the Basílica del Pilar for the rest of his life, serving there for roughly forty-seven years. Among his pupils were important 19th-century organists such as Nicolás Ledesma and Valentín Metón, and later writers like Hilarión Eslava credited him with founding a prestigious Zaragoza organ school. As a composer, Ferreñac specialised in keyboard music and left one of the most substantial organ corpora of late 18th-century Aragon: a large manuscript volume of about 278 pages preserved in the Archivo de Música de las

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