Gustavo Cabrera is een Argentijns/Amerikaanse violist, saxofonist en componist/arrangeur en daagt zichzelf uit door verschillende muzikale concepten te ontdekken. Van de kracht van één instrument tot een volledig ensemble met verschillende line-ups om zo diepe en interessante texturen te creëren..
Gustavo Cabrera was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1989, and has a second Argentine nationality. He started playing the violin at the age of five and is classically trained. In 2004, he won the Public Radio Young Performers Concerto Competition in Illinois. This gave him extra motivation and he started studying violin and saxophone at the “Milikin University of Illinois” in 2007. Here, he studied mainly jazz saxophone but also began to discover the possibilities of expanding the jazz idiom on the violin. This changed drastically when he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2009. There he started studying tango and also played in classical orchestras.
After living, studying and working in Argentina for 5 years, he decided to move to Rotterdam in 2014, to continue his studies in performance and composition at Codarts Conservatory. Here, in 2018, he completed his bachelor’s degree cum laude in the Argentine tango department. Gustavo is also first violinist of the well-known DOT Quartet, where he combines both his tango and classical background in his arrangements and compositions, creating his own lyrical style.
Currently, Gustavo is completing his master’s degree in composition at Codarts Conservatory. Here he studied with Paul van Brugge and Gustavo Beytelmann. During the master’s, his focus was on composing for violin, saxophone, bandoneon, orchestra, big band and other line-ups. He also studied the possibilities of mixing his creations with atypical instruments.
