Biography
Claudio Recabarren Madrid—Pianist. Organist. Composer.
His vast career as a professional musician spans decades. Informed by an early education from his father Moises, a fantasist pianist during the 1950’s, his own self-teaching, and private classes from Rene Reyes, teacher at the National Conservatory of Music at University of Chile. Later he traveled to the United States, shared with musicians and studied pop orchestral arrangements and film soundtracks at the Golden West College in California. His music has bridged continents, transversed languages, and connected people across the world.
Dedicated to his music and those who support him, he has journeyed to Asia, North America, Latin America, and Europe, performing on lakes, hills, the tops of mountains, deserts, dolmens, museums, planetrium and astronomical observatories...Piano Under the Stars.
History
- 2023
- Wrote music for the fulldome short movie Cosmic Caverns – 32 awards.
- 2020
- Wrote music for the Fulldome movie Piano Under The Stars – 33 awards.
- 2016
- Wrote music for the documentary 321 Despegue for Planetarium University of Santiago Chile.
- 2015
- Wrote music and designed audio for the documentary Luces del Infinito for Planetarium University of Santiago Chile.
- 2012
- Wrote music for 16 chapters of Sesame Street in New York.
- 2008
- Presented solo piano project “Emerges Misteriosamente” playing piano.
- 2007
- Recorded and edited in Spain “Arcturus Pucará” with Claudio Recabarren Trío.
- 2003
- Wrote music to the documentary Bosque Hueco, Buscando la Luz, and Hijos del Sol.
- 2002
- Presented solo piano project “Fifth Dimension”.
- 1997
- Presented first solo piano recital “Plenitud” recorded live in Chile.
- 1994
- Recorded a Latin Jazz project titled “Ecuentro en Tres Acequias” under Claudio Recabarren Trío, playing both organ and piano.
- 1989
- Introduced “Running”, his first CD recorded in Chile and also mastered and distributed USA.
- 1982
- Joined the group Wind Up as composer director and electric piano player, a funk band based in California. USA.
- 1976
- Joined the group Quasars, an electronic progressive rock band, captivating audiences with his virtuosity on the Hammond organ with bass pedals a funk band based in Chile.
A pianist and transient passenger of the Universe: that is how Claudio likes to define himself. It may be that these words hold the entire meaning of his work and of his being. He is, first and foremost, a pianist a organist and composer; a artist. That is his occupation, and through it he is full of certainty about his place in this world. It is non-negotiable. Claudio cannot conceive of himself in any way other than with his piano and his music. He is, before anything and over everything, an artist who lives for his art. Anyone who meets him cannot help but imagine him as an old troubadour through the roads, carrying his piano, transmitting music and mystique. He shows himself to us just as he is, stripped away of every shield, like the indigenous man preparing for the ritual. That journey through the universe can be interpreted as a search… a two-part search. There is the spiritual search, the one to find his own persona through the roads of his internal universe. This is the road that has brought him from the San Bernardo of his birth, in the south of the world, to a small town in the mountains of the old European world, while passing through the modern Babylon of the United States. This personal exploration has moved parallel to an imaginary line… the search for a defined musical style. The rock of his youth, the classical music in his early years in Chile, the Jazz and Latin Fusion of his stay in the U.S., the pre-Colombian tribal rhythms during his return to Chile, and even the flamenco during his current stay in Spain are the influences that have molded his work. These are all steps, driven to find a language that can explain his person, the world, life… the universe.
—Máximo Beni González
music historian
translated by Daniela Recabarren Bustamante