Paloma O'Shea

Who is Paloma O'Shea?

Paloma O'Shea Artiñano, 1st Marquise of O'Shea, is a pianist, patron of the arts, founder and current principal of the Queen Sofía College of Music and founder and president of the Albeniz Foundation.

Paloma O'Shea was born in Bilbao suburb Las Arenas, Biscay, Spain, a daughter of part-Irish José O'Shea y Sebastián de Erice and Basque María de la Asunción de Artíñano y Luzarraga, married at Concepción, Madrid, on 2 May 1935. She started studying piano in 1941 in Bilbao and later moved to France to further her music studies. At age 15 she won the Primer Premio Fin de Carrera and performed as soloist with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra. Several years later she married Emilio Botín, Executive Chairman of Grupo Santander and devoted herself to promoting classical music in Spain.

In 1972 she founded the Concurso de Piano de Santander, which was later named after her and in 1991 founded the Queen Sofía College of Music, a private music school, now one of the leading music schools in Spain.

She was given the rank of Marchioness of O'Shea by the King of Spain in 2008, the Légion d'honneur of France, the gold medal of the Spanish Institute in New York and the Picasso Award of the UNESCO. She has 6 children and divides her time between Madrid and Santander.