Death Anniversary: Manuel de Zumaya — December 21, 1755

He died at Oaxaca on 21 December 1755, having served as chapelmaster of Oaxaca Cathedral for over a decade. Regarded as the greatest master of the Mexican high baroque, he was the first native-born composer in New Spain to compose an Italian-style opera, staging La Parténope in the viceregal palace of Mexico City in 1711.

A note on this date. The exact day of birth is not recorded in colonial baptismal registers of Mexico City Cathedral (c. 1679); we celebrate his verified death anniversary on 21 December. We publish it with the warning rather than leave the page out, and if you can point us to a register or an archive that carries it we will confirm or correct it.

Dates verified on Robert Stevenson, Renaissance and Baroque Musical Sources in the Americas, Organization of American States, 1970, ISBN 978-0827000858, pp. 142-148; Mark Brill, Music of Latin America and the Caribbean, Routledge, 2017, ISBN 978-1138053243, pp. 88-90.