After starting his musical studies at an early age, and giving concerts since his 4 years old, Juan Blanco has worked with music and sound his whole life, with an emphazise in classical music, theory and Harp performance. After debuting as a soloist at the age of 15 in Canada with the orchestra I Musici de Montréal, he started his bachelor studies in a colombian music institution based on the educational model of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
Juan Sebastián has happily participated as Principal Harp in diverse projects, such as the Netherlands tour with the Jazz Jong Metropole Orkest, the Central American Tour (Panamá, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc.) and the Grammy Awards winning European Tour (Germany, Ukraine, Poland etc.) with the Orchestra of the Americas. He has collaborated with top level professional orchestras such as the Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Medellín Philharmonic, Bogotá Philharmonic, Conservatorium van Amsterdam Symphonieorkest, Cali Philharmonic, and Colombian Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed in several Festivals along his carreer, such as the Edinburgh Summer Festival in Scotland, the Grachtenfestival in Amsterdam and the Cartagena Music Festival, as well as in prestigious concert halls such as the ElbPhilharmonie in Hamburg, the Kurhaus of Wiesbaden, and the Muziekgebouw aan ’t Ij in Amsterdam.
Juan Sebastián completed his Master studies in Harp Music Performance with the highest standards at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where he realized also Triple Baroque Italian Harp studies, after winning various awards such as the Talent Grant from the Amsterdam University for the Arts, the best mandatory piece interpretation at the Rosa Spier International Competition, first prize at the International Mexico Harp Competition, and scholarships to attend the Saratoga Harp Colony in New York with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Today, based in Amsterdam, he works as a soloist, freelancer musician, in a concert hall specialized in Organ music, and in education as private teacher, teacher in the Muziekschool Diemen, and in a youth-driven orchestra organization in Netherlands based in the venezuelan ¨El Sistema¨. As a colombian and latinamerican musician, beyond the interpretation as a concertist and the music itself, his interest resides in taking music to all corners in the world against division and discrimination, and in the social impact and transformative power that music and art has in human societies. For this reason, ideologically and artistically, it’s exciting to announce his recent integration as the harpist of the Latin Orchestra of Europe based in Frankfurt.
