The Radio Nacional de España (RNE) station dedicated to the broadcasting of classical music was born with the original name of ‘Segundo Programa’ in July 1965, thanks to Enrique Franco, who was its first director.
In 1981, it was renamed ‘Radio 2’ and from 1994 it began to be known as it is today: ‘Radio Clásica’.
In 2024 it celebrates the 30th anniversary of its definitive name and in 2025 it will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its creation as a station dedicated to classical music.
For all music lovers, radio has been, is and always will be a very present medium in our lives. Its incessant and tireless work for the benefit of the dissemination of any style of music is meritorious and has brought us enormous emotional benefits over the decades.
In particular, Radio Clásica has been for music lovers, students and professionals of music, a bottomless ‘well’ of wisdom, of novelties, of continuous discoveries about the history of music, its performers, the works...
Radio Clásica has taken great care in the diffusion of the guitar: (repertoire, authors, performers...) broadcasting records, interviews, presentations... in its different programmes.
July 2011 saw the start of the programme: La Guitarra, directed by Ángel Sánchez Manglanos, dedicated exclusively to the dissemination of the classical concert guitar, a programme that has been broadcast uninterruptedly on Saturday afternoons until June this year.
Radio Clásica has been awarded several important national and international prizes such as the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, which it received in 2006, and the Ondas Prize in 2023.
The awarding of this Prize is a further recognition of her excellent work in favour of music and the guitar, and joins the two previous editions, in which the brilliant guitarist Pepe Romero (2022) and the Fundación Victoria y Joaquín Rodrigo (2023) received the Prize.
The Award will be presented in person on forthcoming dates that we will announce appropriately.
José Luis Ruiz del Puerto
Director of the Alhambra Guitars Foundation
Enrique Franco, first director of Radio Clásica