The Venezuelan composer and pianist Sebastián Díaz Peña (1844-1926) was born in Puerto Cabello, he moved as a youngster to Valencia where he became a piano teacher. Later on, he was assistant conductor of the opera company of Egisto Petrilli, touring South America in 1879. As composer, Díaz Peña's repertoire includes a great number of waltzes such as "Marisela", his most famous piece.
Díaz Peña was forced into exile in Curaçao in 1915, when the government of President Cipriano Castro, of whose official band he was the director, was overthrown. He returned to his motherland in 1925 settling in Maracay where President Juan Vicente Gómez appointed him as conductor of the official orchestra.
Díaz Peña was a non-Jewish musician with ties to the Jewish community of Curaçao. It is not surprising that such a distinguished Venezuelan artist would write music for the Jewish community in Curaçao, particularly if one considers the ties between the Jews of the island and those of its closest mainland neighbor (see Levy-Benshimol 2002 and Sola 1991).
Two compositions by Díaz Peña survived in the Mikve Israel - Emanuel archives, one is the Marcha Nupcial and the second piece is Tehillat.
