Incredibly gifted on the guitar”, the Westfälische Nachrichten described Juan Carlos
Arancibia Navarro in the wake of one of his recitals. The guitarist has given more than four
hundred concerts in Europe, Asia and North and South America as well as taking part in
countless radio and television broadcasts, all of which have confirmed his outstanding
abilities as a musician.
Juan Carlos Navarro is one of the busiest guitarists of his generation. Even while he was still
a student in Oscar Zamora’s class at Lima’s National Conservatory of Music he was already
winning prizes and appearing in the city’s major concert halls.
Juan Carlos Navarro moved from Peru to Germany in 2006 to study with Dale Kavanagh and
Thomas Kirchhoff of the Amadeus Guitar Duo at the Detmold University of Music. He also
gained his artistic diploma in Detmold, completing his course in 2009 and passing his concert
examination with distinction in 2012. That same year West German Radio WDR presented a
portrait of him. He completed his master’s degree in chamber music with Joaquín Clerch at
the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf, gaining the highest mark on his course.
In Germany, too, the young guitarist has received numerous awards. In 2008, for example,
the GWK, Society for the Promotion of Westphalian Cultural Life, awarded him its Young
Artist Award. That same year he also received a scholarship from the Alumni Association of
the Detmold University of Music. In November 2010 he received the International Young
Artist Special Prize of the Paderborn-Höxter-Detmold Volksbank. Together with the flautist
Anita Farkas he has additionally received a number of prizes as part of the Arie Duo. Among
them is the Leopold Bellan Chamber Music Prize in Paris.
As a soloist Juan Carlos Navarro has appeared at countless music festivals and with several
orchestras that include the Wernigerode Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, the Hagen
Philharmonic and the Detmold Chamber Orchestra.
For many years Juan Carlos Navarro has also worked as a teacher in Germany and given
regular masterclasses. He lectures at the Technical University in Dortmund, where he runs
the guitar ensemble that he founded. He also lectures at the University of Paderborn. In his
capacity as chairman of the Dortmund Friends of Guitar Music he has run the Dortmund
Guitar Festival since 2017, working in association with the City of Dortmund and the
Technical University of Dortmund. Since 2020 he teaches at the Detmold Universitiy of
Music.
La Catedral is Juan Carlos Navarro’s fifth CD. His previous solo album, Danzas, was notably
well received by the musical press. As one half of Arie Duo with the flautist Anita Farkas, he
has also recorded the album Café, which the magazine of the Federation of German
Plucked-Instrument Musicians described as “most definitely worth hearing”. All of his CDs
have been released by GWK RECORDS.