.. width="425" height="350" ..Rene Izquierdo graduated from the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory and Superior Institute of Art in Havana, where he studied with renowned guitarist Jesus Ortega. After his arrival in the United States, he graduated from Yale University School of Music, where he studied with Benjamin Verdery and obtained a Master of Music and an Artist Diploma degree in 2001 and was awarded the Eliot Fisk Prize to an outstanding guitarist. He has studied with Leo Brouwer, David Russell, Shin-Ichi Fukuda, Eli Kastner, Pepe Romero, Angel Romero, Carlos Barbosa-Lima, David Starobin, Eduardo Fernandez, Jorge Morel, Robert Beaser and Anthony Newman. Mr. Izquierdo is currently recording his debut CD with Luthier Music Corporation.
Izquierdo has been awarded several competition prizes, and most recently was a finalist in the JoAnne Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition. He has appeared as a guest soloist and in chamber music concerts throughout the United States, Canada, Cuba, Spain, France and Italy. He has shared the stage with many prestigious guitarists including Eliot Fisk, Jorge Morel and Benjamin Verdery as well as renowned flutist Ransom Wilson at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. At the Only in America Cameo Concerts Series, Izquierdo performed music by composer Bruce Adolphe, in collaboration with David Jolley and Lucy Shelton. Renowned composers such as Jorge Morel and Carlos R. Rivera have dedicated works to him. In 2004 he performed the Villa-Lobos concerto with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and played the U.S. premiere of "The Divan of Moses Ibn-Ezra" by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a 19-song cycle, with soprano Arianne Slack in a Merkin Archive concert. Before joining the faculty at UWM, Izquierdo taught at the State University of New York at Purchase and Yale University.
