 In 1904 Azkue left Bilbao to travel Europe for 5 years, with major stops in Tours, Brussels and Cologne, where he completed his musical studies.On returning to Bilbao in 1909 he further busied himself with academic work (such as "Ortzuri" in 1911 and "Urlo" in 1914), boosting the emergence of the academic study of Basque.He was one of the most important supporters of establishing the Euskaltzaindia, the Academy of the Basque Language, at the 1918 congress of Eusko Ikaskuntza in Oñati and was its first head from its birth in 1919 onwards.