Colombian-born guitarist Francisco Roldán has performed in Russia, Argentina, Spain, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Greece, Paraguay, Portugal and throughout the United States. He has played various concerti with orchestra and has participated in numerous chamber music recitals with singers and instrumentalists. He has five recordings available: Almost All Bach, in which he interprets the music of Bach and Scarlatti; Latin Guitar, in which he performs music of Barrios, Lauro and Landestoy; ZigZag, with his ZigZag Quartet, with music of Boccherinni, Bolling, Gnattali, Landestoy and Piazzolla; Interweaving, with soprano Gretchen Farrar, with music from the Renaissance to today’s music. All of these are available and can be heard at cdbaby.com, amazon.com and iTunes. His newest recording, Instruments of the People, with percussionist Danny Mallon, came out in 2016.
Francisco Roldán is a concert artist and a teacher and loves what he does. He is currently on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music Preparatory Division, Lehman College – City University of New York, and New Jersey City University. His website is www.franciscoroldan.com
His recordings can be heard on Pandora, Spotify and other music streaming apps.
Reviews:
“(Mr. Roldán)…is an excellent musician, an exciting soloist and sensitive accompanist…” – Soundboard
“Francisco Roldán played them (Ernesto Cordero’s detailed, constantly moving, rhythmically vital guitar parts) with enough energy to draw the ear, but not so much as to overwhelm the singers.” – The New York Times
“Francisco Roldán interpreted the Aranjuez with a maximum display of technique and security…showing exquisiteness and dominion.” – La Voz Hispana
“Mr. Roldán gave a performance of the Krenek Suite as good as I have ever heard…his Invocación y la danza was played with technical dominion…” – Soundboard
TAP Work:
“TAP has opened up a whole world of ideas and very useful methods and techniques for me to use in my teaching career. I feel very comfortable in a classroom, bringing to it my expertise in my field (music) and my awareness of Social Justice. The latter has become very important to me this past year and my training in the TAP Workshop only helped me to polish my style and to be more aware of injustice, misogyny, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. (and of how I can open up discussion of these extremely relevant issues). I’ve grown a lot as an educator. My internship with Katie Rainey at the Young Women’s Leadership School was amazing, instructive and very inspirational. We (Katie really…) actually had the class write a beautiful poem which I set to music. In our last session, all the girls in the class (about 25 of them) sang the song while I accompanied them with the guitar. It was such a rewarding experience! I am very excited to bring my abilities as a teaching artist into my future endeavors!”
Most Memorable TAP Moment:
“At the risk of being repetitive, when I was accompanying the Young Women’s Leadership School as they sang the song I composed to their lyrics, it was a very high point in my past year! I also loved the Workshop in which we all presented our class plans to each other and taught each other so much!”
Find out more about Francisco here:
