Rafael Gargate Santamaria
Viola
Rafael Pablo Gargate Santamaria has made music from an early age, playing percussion instruments and guitar in the Orchestra and Choir of Jesus Nazarene. Later he began his violin studies with the teacher Edgar Gargate Ostos, and at age 13, chose the viola as his principal instrument. At 16, he entered the National Conservatory of Music as a student of Roberto Gonzales.
In 2012 he won the competition for soloists of the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru. In 2016 he was invited as a soloist to the opening concert of the Arequipa Symphony Orchestra. Take classes with the teachers Stefan Fehland of the Vogler Quartet, Roland Glassl of the Mandelring Quartet, Lawrence Dutton of the Emerson Quartet, Roberto Díaz, and others.
He participates in music festivals in Brazil and the United States. Rafael earned his Artist Diploma in 2020 under the tutelage of Marylene Gingras-Roy at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. In the year 2019, he joined the viola section of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra, the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, and Altoona Symphony Orchestra. In 2021 he started teaching for YADO, SOHO, and Prelude Strings in the city of Erie, Pennsylvania. Rafael completed his master’s degree in performance in May 2022 with Marylene Gingras-Roy at Duquesne University.