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Sphinx Catalog Authors
Natali Herrera-Pacheco
Natali Herrera-Pacheco works as the Director of Research in Latin American Identities and Cultural Liaisons for The Sphinx Catalog of Latin-American Cello Works. With her expertise in Hispanic culture, music, and art, Natali is in charge of establishing strategies for the promotion of the database as a door to the musical culture of Latin America, as well as defining the criteria for collaborations with other initiatives with a similar mission.
As a scholar, her work has encompassed the study of Venezuelan musical rituals and the relationship of music and literature in the work of Dominican writer Marcio Veloz Maggiolo. She has published articles in scholarly journals in Venezuela and has presented lectures and papers at universities and conferences in the US, France, Mexico, Venezuela, and Spain.
Her artistic work has included collaborations with Khemia Ensemble as an artist-in-residence in works that were presented at National Sawdust and New Music Gathering, among other new music festivals and concert series in the US. In addition to her academic trajectory and her visual art, Natali was trained as a cellist at the El Sistema music education program in Venezuela. As a member of the Venezuelan National Youth Orchestra, she performed under the baton of Giuseppe Sinopoli and Gustavo Dudamel. Natali also had extensive experience as a cellist of orchestral ensembles devoted to performing Venezuelan folk music.
Her most recent project is the production of the educative video series The Voices of Latin-American Cello, hosted by The Sphinx Catalog of Latin-American Cello Works. She holds a Doctorate in Latin American Literature from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain; and a Masters in Ethnohistory and a Bachelors in Art History from the Universidad de Los Andes in her native Venezuela. Natali is fluent in Spanish, English and French, and lives a happy life with her two cats and her husband in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Photo credit: Natali Herrera Pacheco
Horacio Contreras
Venezuelan cellist Horacio Contreras is a faculty member of Lawrence University in Wisconsin and the Music Institute of Chicago. He is an active concert cellist, recitalist, and chamber musician, and has performed as a soloist with several of Venezuela’s top orchestras, as well as with orchestral ensembles in Colombia, France, and the US. He has been invited to teach master classes at schools of music including Michigan, Juilliard, Oberlin, Indiana University at Bloomington, and renown programs in Latin America. He is the author of the cello adaptation of Ronald Vamos’ Exercises in Various Combinations of Double-Stops, published by Carl Fischer, as well as other pedagogic works and scholarly articles.
Horacio is a member of the Reverón Piano Trio, an all-Venezuelan ensemble devoted to the divulgation of Latin American repertoire for piano trio. He started his cello studies at El Sistema in Venezuela, and made further studies in France and Spain. He holds a Masters and a Doctorate degrees from the University of Michigan. For more information, please visit horaciocontreras.com
Photo credit: Patricia Laine
Germán Marcano
Venezuelan cellist with one of the most versatile career in Latin American scene. He was principal cello with the Simón Bolívar Symphony and has been regular guest soloist and conductor with Venezuela’s main orchestras. Marcano held teaching positions at the Simón Bolívar Conservatory (El Sistema), Emil Friedman School, the Simón Bolívar University, and the Mozarteum School in Caracas, and has given masterclasses at Grand Valley State, Andrews University, the San Diego Youth Orchestra, the University of Iowa, Louisiana State University and the Madison Cello Institute in Wisconsin, Colombia and Ecuador. He has premiered works from renowned Latin American composers. Among his publications we can count editions of important Venezuelan cello works, and three commercial recordings two of them devoted to folk Venezuelan music.
Marcano holds degrees from the University of Surrey, the Guildhall School of Music (England), and Masters and DMA from the UW-Madison. He currently lives in Florida, where he teaches and perform regularly. For more information, please visit germanmarcano.com
Jesus Alfonzo
Jesus Alfonzo serves as Professor of Music at Stetson University, DeLand, Florida where he teaches viola, chamber music and string pedagogy. He also conducts the Viola Consort and leads the viola clinic. He is member of the Bach Festival Orchestra in Winter Park, Florida, and has been a member of the Rios Reyna String Quartet since 1987. He received a diploma and post-graduate diploma from the Juilliard School of Music and master of music and doctorate in musical arts degrees from Michigan State University.
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Dr. Alfonzo is a founding member of the El Sistema, the Venezuelan National System of Youth Orchestras, an opportunity, which allowed him to develop both his teaching and playing skills. In 1980 and 1981, he served as principal violist of the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra. He became principal violist of Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for sixteen years. In Venezuela, he taught at the Conservatorio de Musica Simon Bolivar, the University Institute of Musical Studies (IUDEM),and the Colegio Emil Friedman.
He recorded The Johannes Brahms Viola Sonatas (1988), and Pipocas with the Rios Reyna String Quartet (1997), a CD set containing string quartet music by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Silvestre Revueltas, and Inocente Carreño. His publications include Soggetto Cavato I: La Historia y mis Relatos de los Primeros Cinco Años de El Sistema (2015); Soggetto Cavato II: Mis Relatos en la Historia de El Sistema, 1980-1984 (2018), and Viola Music by Latin American Composers: Catalog of Works (2018).
From 1998 until 2014, he presented an annual series of viola and string pedagogy master classes at El Sistema throughout Venezuela. In addition to his teaching duties and performance schedule, Dr. Alfonzo maintains a private studio of distinguished students in Florida.