Biography

Carlos Castro is a Costa Rican guitarist who is dedicated to the performance of the Latin American repertoire in an authentic and native manner. Nowadays he is a reference within the Central American guitarists.

This multifaceted musician was born on January 6, 1987, in San José. His experience with the classical guitar began at the age of nine. He studied his Bachelor of Music under the guidance of Ramonet Rodríguez at the University of Costa Rica, where he graduated with highest honors in 2010. With this teacher, he developed his refined technique and a meticulous approach to the repertoire, which distinguish his current performing style. In 2008, Castro won the first prize of the “2^nd Central American, Mexico and Colombia Classical Guitar Competition” in Honduras. The University of Costa Rica gave him an honor medal as the best student of the Faculties of Arts and Humanities in 2009.

He moves to Austria in 2011 for his postgraduate studies with Paolo Pegoraro, one of the most renowned guitar teachers in our time. The influence of this Italian professor was determining to go more deeply into his performing sensibility, to consolidate his personal style and to refine his professional approach to the guitar. In 2013 he graduated as Master of Arts at the University of Music and Performing Arts of Graz and received the culture management’s diploma of the Institute for Cultural Concepts of Vienna.

Castro attended master classes with the most outstanding guitar teachers, among others Leo Brouwer, David Russell, Pablo Márquez, Lorenzo Micheli, Carlo Marchione, Thomas Müller-Pering, Marcin Dylla, Joaquín Clerch, Eduardo Fernández, Álvaro Pierri, Carlos Pérez, Rafael Aguirre, Juan Carlos Laguna, Ernesto Cordero and Ricardo Gallén. He took also the advanced courses of the Italian teachers Adriano del Sal (2009) and Paolo Pegoraro (2011) in Mexico.

Carlos plays in a wonderful guitar built by the Italian luthier Luigi Locatto (2012), inspired in a historical model of Enrique García with Turinese spruce and Brazilian rosewood. He also has a replica of a Romantic Viennese guitar (Johann Anton Stauffer, ca. 1835-1840) by the Czech luthier Jan Tuláček (2015). Since 2013 he lives in Vienna with his wife Carmen and works as guitar teacher in the J. G. Albrechtsberger Musikschule Klosterneuburg (Lower Austria) and Carl Goldmark Musikschule Deutschkreutz (Burgenland). Nowadays continues Castro his guitar development with private lessons in Vienna under the guidance of Prof. Adriano del Sal (University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna).