San Pedro's Rock Factory, voted best music school in Spain

Rock Factory, the modern music school based in San Pedro Alcántara, has won an international award for the best music school in Spain.

The Corporate Livewire Prestige Awards honour the best companies in their respective fields and have recognised Rock Factory for its work.

The awards started off by recognising innovation giants such as Google, but today they are focusing their attention on small and medium-sized companies around the world.

Director of Rock Factory Rafael Reyes says, «They contacted us via email. Nobody can apply for these awards. They found us.»

Rock Factory opened in 2015 in San Pedro and also has a small branch in Casares. Its classrooms have produced very young talented musicians including Blanca Semper, the youngest person in the world to achieve a top-level double diploma in guitar and bass with Trinity College London.

In the exam, for which she got top grades, she had to perform songs by bands such as Molotov, Primus and Level 42.

Blanca is a member of Devils in the Sky, a band made up of local youngsters and founded in 2017. The other members are Lluvia (bass), Sara and María (vocals), Julia (guitar and keyboards) and Sergio (drums) and they have already released a number of albums.

Not unlike the school featured in the 2003 musical School of Rock, Rock Factory has its own battle of the bands, in which the bands Dreamers and Mala Reputación have recently participated, along with students from the centre.

«I'm from Cordoba, but I came to San Pedro when I was twelve years old,» says Rafael, who explains that he learned to play the guitar at the age of fifteen thanks to a friend who lent him one.

He went on to receive classes «from the most cutting-edge teachers in the whole country and always in modern music. I didn't go to a music conservatory,» he points out, adding that he has only ever learned to play electronic instruments.

He later studied to become a music teacher. «I have united my two passions: education and music,» explains Rafael, who could almost be mistaken for Dewey Finn, the character - a teacher - played by the actor Jack Black in the 2003 film.