Viviana Guzmán is a virtuoso flutist, composer, dancer and poet, who performs over 80 concerts a year, and has played in 74 countries. She has been described by the New York Times as "an imaginative artist." It has also been said of her that "Guzmán may be the first flutist since her teacher Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal was a French flautist. He has been personally "credited with returning to the flute the popularity as a solo classical instrument it had not held since the 18th century."-Early years:...

, to be able to establish a sustaining solo career."

Early life and education

Born in Concepcion

Concepción, Chile

Concepción is a city in Chile, capital of Concepción Province and of the Biobío Region or Region VIII. Greater Concepción is the second-largest conurbation in the country, with 889,725 inhabitants...

, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, Guzmán came to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 as a child in order to get medical treatment for displaced hips, and now lives near San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. By the age of 15, she played as a soloist

Solo (music)

In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

 with orchestra, studied with Jean-Pierre Rampal and was featured on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

's nationally televised John Denver

John Denver

Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...

 music special. Ms. Guzmán has also studied with Albert Tipton

Albert Tipton

Albert Tipton was an American flutist, pianist and conductor. In 1966, Time placed Albert Tipton amongst the "30 first-rate flutists" in the United States and Europe. He studied with William Kincaid at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia...

, James Galway

James Galway

- External links : IMGArtists.com 15 September 2008. AllAboutJazz.com 5 August 2008.*...

, and Julius Baker

Julius Baker

Julius Baker was one of the foremost American orchestral flute players.He was well known as a teacher and served as a faculty member at the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, and Carnegie Mellon University...

.

Guzmán attended Rice University

Rice University

William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...

 on fellowship, first with an emphasis on medicine; subsequently, she chose music as her career path and attended the Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 on scholarship. Ms. Guzmán gave her New York recital debut at the Carnegie Hall Recital Hall.

A winner of the 1991 Young Artists Auditions of Artists International, she won numerous other First Prizes in competitions including the New York Flute Club Competition; Five Towns Music and Arts Foundation and the Performer's of Connecticut Young Artists Competition. She was also a recipient of the Lincoln Center Scholarship; Institute of Hispanic culture Award; Shepherd Award; Immanuel Olshan Award; Hirsch Award; Phillips Foundation Award; and the Ruth Burr Award.

Career

She has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

, Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

, Houston, Khabarovsk

Khabarovsk

Khabarovsk is the largest city and the administrative center of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located some from the Chinese border. It is the second largest city in the Russian Far East, after Vladivostok. The city became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia...

 Chamber Orchestra (Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

), Filarmonica de Santiago (Chile), Great Falls Symphony (Montana

Montana

Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

), Diablo Symphony (California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

), Irving Symphony (Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

), Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, San Jose

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

 Chamber Orchestra, and in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

's Alice Tully Hall

Alice Tully Hall

Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. It is named for Alice Tully, a New York performer and philanthropist whose donations assisted in the construction of the hall...

, Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 and Avery Fisher Hall

Avery Fisher Hall

Avery Fisher Hall is a concert hall, in New York City and is part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts complex. It is the home of the New York Philharmonic, with a capacity of 2,738 seats.-History:...

. As an orchestral musician, she has played with the Texas Opera Theater Orchestra, Mikhail Baryshnikov

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...

's White Oak Dance Project, and in the Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 musical, "Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard

Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...

" with Glenn Close

Glenn Close

Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...

. As a member of the Houston Grand Opera, she accompanied Placido Domingo

Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...

, and with the New World Symphony in Miami she played under Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra.-Early years:...

.

Guzmán has been heard on NPR

NPR

NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

's "Morning Edition" & "Great Performances", "West Coast Live," PBS, as well as on WNYC

WNYC

WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...

 New York, KUSC

KUSC

KUSC is a listener-supported classical music radio station broadcasting from downtown Los Angeles, California, USA. KUSC is owned and operated by the University of Southern California, which also operates student-run KXSC and San Francisco's classical station KDFC...

 in Los Angeles, KPFA

KPFA

KPFA is a listener-funded progressive talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed on-the-air April 15 1949, as the first Pacifica Station...

, and KDFC

KDFC

KDFC-FM is a non-commercial radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area that broadcasts a classical music format on 90.3 MHz FM. The station is the radio home of the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Opera....

 in San Francisco, among others. On television, she has appeared in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

 including "Good Day New York" "Good Morning Arizona" "Good Morning Houston" "Sabado Gigante" "Datebook," "San Jose," and "BayTV" San Francisco. The premiere of her music video was aired on television internationally in 31 countries on Univision

Univision

Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...

 and Arts Showcase Network. She has been featured on the cover of Latina Style (2003), and profiled in Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan (magazine)

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

 (Espanol) Magazine (July 2003). Her many recording credits include the album Afterplay

Afterplay (Brian Kelly album)

Afterplay is the second studio album by American composer and pianist Brian Kelly, released on October 14, 2008. The album was awarded second place in the "Best Instrumental Jazz Album of 2009" category by the Just Plain Folks Music Awards and ranked #3 in the NAR Top 100 Radio Chart for three...

 by Brian Kelly (2008).

Currently, Guzmán performs as a soloist with orchestra, as a solo artist, and with the quartets, "Viviana & DIVAS LATINAS" and "Festival of Four." She combines dance, including bellydancing, into some of her performances.

Discography

• "Telemann Flute Fantasies" 1996
• "Planet Flute" 1997
• "Danza de Amor" (with Festival of Four) in 2000
• "Mostly Tango" 2002
• "Argentine Music" 2006
• "Meditations For Flute," 2007

Publications

• Contributing author, entry in "Greatest Inventions of the Last 2,000 Years," by John Brockman (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
• "Love Soliloquies," Viviana Guzmán (Syren Press, 2002).

External links

• http://www.viviana.org