Natali Herrera-Pacheco is a Venezuelan artist and scholar that works on the intersection of music with other expressive forms. Natali 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 Venezuela.

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 presented papers at conferences in France (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), Mexico (53 International Congress of Americanists), Venezuela (Third National Congress of Anthropology), and Spain (University of Granada).

As an artist, her activity centers in images, both still (photography) and mobile (video). Natali was an artist-in-residence of Khemia Ensemble, a music collective devoted to the presentation of contemporary concert music in innovative ways. Her character Fragile inspired the ensemble’s 2017-2018 concert season, where she collaborated in intersections of Natali’s video-art and Carolina Heredia’s music in the works Negative Image and Interludio. Her video-art has been presented at venues and festivals including National Sawdust, Strange Beautiful Music Festival, University of Missouri, MoxSonic Experimental Sonic Arts Festival, among others. In photography, her main interests has been photography of musicians and street photography. She has worked as a freelance photographer for the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theater and Dance; faculty members of the schools of music of the University of Michigan, University of Missouri, Baylor University, Lawrence University; the chamber music ensembles Khemia Ensemble and the Ivalas Quartet; and members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

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. Natali is fluent in Spanish, English and French, and lives a happy life with her two cats and her husband in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Venezuelan cellist Horacio Contreras has gained esteem through a multifaceted career as a concert cellist, chamber musician, pedagogue, and scholar. He has collaborated with prestigious institutions across the Americas and Europe as a concerto soloist, a recitalist, a chamber musician, and a master class clinician.

Highlights of his career include solo performances with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and the Municipal Orchestra of Caracas in Venezuela, the EAFIT University Orchestra in Colombia, the Camerata de France in France, and the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra and the Music Institute of Chicago’s Chamber Orchestra in the US; chamber collaborations with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and members of the Detroit, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras, and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin; and master classes at Bloomington, Juilliard, Michigan, Oberlin and the ASTA National Convention, as well as at many renowned programs from Latin America. Recent collaborations include the recording of the works for cello and piano by Ricardo Lorenz, the commission and premiere of Diáspora for cello and piano by the Schubert Club’s composer-in-residence Reinaldo Moya, and the recording of Shuying Li’s World Map Concerti with the Four Corners Ensemble.

Horacio serves on the faculty of Lawrence University, the Music Institute of Chicago and the University of Michigan’s MPulse summer institute Center Stage Strings. His students have made solo recordings, soloed nationally and internationally, attended festivals such as Aspen, Orford and Domaine Forget, and won awards at international and national competitions. They have continued their education at institutions including the University of Michigan, the San Francisco Conservatory, the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne in Switzerland, and the Hochschule for Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Mannheim, Germany. Some of his former students have pursued successful careers as orchestral musicians, chamber musicians, teachers, and freelancers. Others have devoted their energies to grow in other professional areas and enjoy a meaningful connection with music through the cello.

He is the founder and artistic director of Strings of Latin America, an official partner to the Sphinx Organization with the purpose of social engagement through the promotion of diversity in the classical music world. As a part of his efforts to help diversifying the repertoire, he coauthored The Sphinx Catalog of Latin-American Cello Works, a comprehensive database with information about works for cello written by Latin American composers created in partnership with the Sphinx Organization and CelloBello.org. His pedagogic book Exercises for the Cello in Various Combinations of Double-Stops has received recognition as a significant contribution to the instrument’s literature.

He is a member of the Four Corners Ensemble and the Reverón Piano Trio. He started his musical studies in Venezuela through El Sistema, and holds degrees from the Conservatoire National de Région de Perpignan, France, the Escola de Musica de Barcelona, Spain, and the University of Michigan. He is represented by Meluk Kultur Management and Halac Artists together with his colleagues of the Reverón Piano Trio.

Germán Marcano currently excels among the most important cellists in the Latin American music scene. His performances have received the best acclaims from musicians and the specialized critic, and his chamber music work with the Rios Reyna Quartet, has stand out as one of the most important in the continent.

A student with Maestro Stefan Popov and of the renowned British pedagogue William Pleeth, Marcano obtained his Bachelor of Music Degree in year 1983, at the prestigious Surrey University, England, where he was prized for the year’s best graduation concert. In 1979, he received by unanimity of the jury, the “Year’s Best Young Musician Award” granted by the Reading Symphony Orchestra, England, subsequently being invited to perform as a soloist with them, in addition to performing in several concerts in some cities of the United Kingdom. In the following years, he has been regularly invited as a soloist with ensembles such as the Surrey University Symphony Orchestra, the Guildford Camerata and the Surrey Philharmonia.

In year 1985, Marcano completed his cello’s superior studies at the Guildhall School of Music, in London, obtaining the “Premier Prix”, being the first cellist ever awarded with such distinction at said institution. He has taken part in master courses with Maestros Franz Helmerson, Mstislav Rostropovich, Raquel Adonaylo, Lynn Harrel and Janos Starker. Back in Venezuela in year 1985, Marcano occupied the principal cello chair with the Simón Bolívar Symphonic Orchestra, doing numerous tours and records productions with them. Since then, he has been a regular invited soloist with Venezuela’s main orchestras, counting among these invitations playing at the first concert performance of the “Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho” Symphonic Orchestra and the first performance in Venezuela of Elgar's cello concerto. He has developed an important teaching work at the Simón Bolívar Conservatory, the Emil Friedman School, with the Simón Bolívar University Music Master Studies, and the Mozarteum Center’s Music School.

As a founding member of the Rios Reyna Quartet, he engaged in several national and international tours, a recording of Latin American string quartets and two performances jointly with the legendary Amadeus Quartet playing Johannes Brahms’ String Sextets.

In 1997, he traveled to the United States to continue studies with Maestro Uri Vardi. During his stay in this country, Marcano won the audition for the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s principal cello position, in Wisconsin, in addition to carrying out various concerts in Madison and Milwaukee as a cellist and a conductor. In May of 2001, Marcano obtained the degree of “Doctor in Music Arts” granted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the United States. Currently, his activities are split between his teaching (Simón Bolívar Conservatory, Emil Friedman School, Simón Bolívar University Music Master studies, and Mozarteum Center’s Music School) and playing, performing as a soloist with Venezuela’s main orchestras, as a member to the Camerata Criolla Ensemble, and conductor of the Simón Bolívar University Chamber Orchestra’s.

In the last years, Marcano has combined his instrument’s traditional repertoire with Latin American compositions of the past and present times, thus promoting this high quality but very little broadcasted repertoire. He has first auditioned works from renowned Venezuelan composers such as Modesta Bor and Inocente Carreño, as well as fist auditions in Venezuela from different Latin American composers as Leo Brower, Alfredo Rugeles, Juán Orrego Sálas, Alberto Ginastera and Calixto Álvarez. Recently, he performed for the first time with the Puerto Rican Symphony, the Concert for Cello and Orchestra of Puerto Rican composer Carlos Vázques, piece composed specially for Marcano. His catalog of Latin American works for cello was published in year 2004 by the Vicente Emilio Sojo Foundation (Funves), with whom ha has recently published an edition of the Suite for cello and piano by Venezuelan composer Modesta Bor. Last September Mr. Marcano released his first CD with his sister Clara, which includes works by Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy and others. A second CD, devoted to folk Venezuelan music, is already in the making. He was recently invited as a professor and lecturer to Grand Valley State University and Andrews University in Michigan.