Julian Gayarre was born and raised in the small Pyrenean town of Roncal (Navarra, Spain). He left school at the age of thirteen to make a living as a shepherd. Two years later his father decided to send him to the capital of Navarra, Pamplona, to work in a small shop.

      It is said that Gayarre sang while he was working. One of his friends adviced him to do the admission for the Orfeón Pamplones (The most famous choir of Navarra). In that time the principal conductor of the choir was Joaquín Maya, who appointed him to be first tenor.

       He went to study at the Royal Conservatory of Madrid, where in 1868 he won the second price for singers. At the age of 25 he was rejected by his teacher Gaztambide, and he had to move back to Pamplona.

    His protectors and friends of Pamplona got him a scholarship from the Provincial Council of Navarre that led him to study in Milan (Italy), where he achieved glamorous success in just three months. From that moment on his career was unstoppable.

     He triumphed in amongst others: Bologna, Rome, at the St. Petersburg Opera, London, Buenos Aires, Austria, Germany, the Teatro Real in Madrid, Sevilla, Liceo de Barcelona, Naples, the Paris Opera, Moscow and Vienna. His final consecration arrived on January 2, 1876, at La Scala in Milan with La Favorite, a work that placed him as the first tenor of the world. Earned him the nickname of “senza rivali, le Roi du chant” (“unrivaled, the King of Song”).

     In December of 1889, in Madrid, he agreed to sing “The fishermen of pearls”, in spite of being ill, probably of cancer in the larynx. He left the scene and attacked a sharp note broke his voice and suffered a fading. Julian fell into a deep depression that, together with cancer, lead him to die on the second of January, 1890, at the age of 46 in Madrid.