BIOGRAPHY

FEDERICO TARAZONA. Instrument maker and guitarist in his free time, he is without a doubt one of the world's finest Andean charango virtuosos, and is also considered as one of the most important contemporary Peruvian young composers.

His father was his first music teacher. He began violin at the age of eight, and a year later he started studying piano with his sister. He learnt guitar with Ricardo Barreda and composition with Walter Casas and Edgar Valcarcel at Peru’s Lima Conservatory. At the same time, he was teaching at the National Folklore High School José Maria Arguedas of Peru. He taught charango, music theory, harmony and counterpoint. There, he began to write his first book "La Escuela Moderna del Charango" (The Modern School of Charango) and feels a real vocation for musical creation. Subsequently, he studied composition with Genady Belov at Russia's Saint-Petersburg Conservatory, and then in Germany at the Freiburg Musikhochschule to specialize in classical guitar with Sonja Prunnbauer where he received a scholarship from the KAAD. When he finished his guitar training, he took further composition courses, including courses in electro-acoustic music, at the Conservatoire National de Région de Bordeaux in France. At present, he realizes a master degree in composition at the Music Falculty of the Laval University in Québec where he is also teaching, as assistant, musical analysis and harmony.

As a performer, Federico Tarazona is known for his exciting interpretation, extraordinary technique and musical expression. A connoisseur of many different traditional Peruvian charango styles and techniques, Tarazona adapts classical guitar techniques to charango, which allows him to play the most virtuosic Latin-American and European works written or transcribed (from vihuela, lute, guitar and violin) for the instrument. As the creator of a new manner of playing this small instrument, which is the charango, and the inventor of the Hatun Peruvian charango, he has also founded a new school of Andean charango, which without a doubt had contributed to Latin-American heritage. He also recorded the "Poemas de la Luz" and "Ayacucharango" Homenaje a Raúl García Zárate albums for the IEMPSA recordings studios and at present for the Sayariy Producciones recordings studios. He took part in a lot of international festivals in Europe, South America, North Africa and this year he performed in the third edition of the Ibero-American Guitar Festival in Washington DC in which he obtained one of the best praises of the Washington Post, for his brilliant musical interpretation and his creativity. In 2009 he took part of the sound-track of the Yann Arthus Bertrand documentary titled "HOME" which was watched in the most important cities of the world.

As a composer, he has written numerous works for many instruments including concertos, chamber music, electro-acoustic works, and pieces for orchestra, in which he integrates instruments and elements of Andean culture. The Poemas de la Luz (Poems of Light) for Hatun Charango, Metarangosofia I and II, for charango and computer-controlled synthesizer, the first concerto for charango Tres Paisajes Andinos, (Three Andean Landscapes) and the second Hatun charango concerto, Alpamayo, are a testament to an authentic and ancestral heritage.

In 1995, he obtained the National Composition Prize from the National Conservatory of Lima and in 1997, the "Southern Peru" prize with an emphasis on composition. In 2011, he won the composition competition organized by the Quebec Guitar Society and Les Productions d'Oz. In 2005, 2008 and 2009, he obtained a wide range of rewards respectively from the Cantuta University, the Huaraz City and the Ricardo Palma University for his artistic work, which allowed him to promote contemporary and traditional Peruvian art. In 2008, he received an honorific prize from the Peruvian Education Ministry for his distinguished work in the promotion and dissemination of Peruvian culture and art.