He moved to San Lorenzo de El Escorial when he was 16 years, where he began his education with the musicologist Samuel Rubio.[1]: p.
115 In 1960 he obtained a cultural exchange scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs admitting him to the advanced course taught in the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
In 1967, he participated in the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music (Germany) with among others, György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Earle Brown.[1]: p.
[3] His biography, Música, belleza y comunicación, was written by Víctor Pliego de Andrés and published by Editorial Complutense in 1994.
[1] In Guardo, a secondary school bears his name (Instituto de Educación Secundaria [es] (IES) Claudio Prieto).