Caroni Music

Julio Gentil Albarracin Montaña was born in Ibagué in the south of Colombia in 1942. He began to study the violin with his father, an excellent violinist who played folk music. At the age of seven he began his studies at the Ibagué Music Conservatory and at thirteen he moved with his father to Bogotá to play with him in his band performing traditional music as well as with other folk groups.
Between 1960 and 1962 he studied classical guitar with Domingo Gonzáles and Daniel Baquero and orchestration with Blas Atehortua and Gustavo Yepes. In 1975 he participated in the Alirio Díaz International Competition in Caracas, Venezuela, where he won the third prize. After the concert, the great Venezuelan composer Antonio Lauro told him : " Montaña, don’t neglect composition, it is a gift from God ". Happily, he has followed Lauro’s advice and has given us some of the most significant and beautiful pieces written for the guitar.
He decided to move to Europe in 1976, first to Madrid and then to Paris, where he worked with the Paraguayan harpist Mauricio Fernández, and made a recording of Agustín Barrios Mangoré’s guitar compositions. .



Painting by Pílar Vázquez
Gentil Montaña has written numerous pieces for guitar including his three Colombian Suites and many other beautiful pieces : preludes, waltzes, danses, habaneras, pasillos, bambucos, guabinas, studies, all strongly influenced by the folklore of his native country. Gentil Montaña is professor of guitar in his own academy and at the Universidad Pédagogica Nacional Academia Folkórica Distrital Luis A. Calvo and at the Collegium Musicum in Bogotá, where he continues to compose and perform.

Caroni Music - Château d'Arcangues - 64200 Arcangues - France - fax. 00 33 (0) 559 43 10 44 - contact@caronimusic.com