Biography

Guitarist/composer born in Cali Colombia, Zinzer began playing guitar at an early age, from early days he had private lessons with classical guitar maestro Gustavo Sierra, he then joined the Cali Conservatoire where he began his career in music, taking on a Degree in Music Performance under concert guitarist Hector Gonzales, with Classical guitar as main instrument and piano as 2nd instrument. After his arrival to the UK he went to Middlesex University where he obtained a BMus in Composition and jazz where he studied composition with composers Peter Fribbins and Francois Evans, he also studied contemporary jazz and fusion with Nikki Iles, Pete Churchill and Rob Townsend. He then joined Goldsmith’s University of London where he obtained his Maters in Acoustic Composition, this time under composer/conductor Roger Redgate and Russian composer Dmitri Smirnoff, with whom he also studied orchestration, this degree program was more focused on atonal music, 12 tone, serialism and new complexity. Zinzer is currently working as a Music lecturer at a West Yorkshire College and as a freelance RGT (Registry of Guitar Tutors) teacher at his home studio in Leeds, as well as having worked as a music lecturer for 5 colleges in the UK and 3 Sixth Form colleges, he is also the leader and songwriter of a Progressive Metal project called Metrik Komplex. He has just finished 2 contemporary classical guitar pieces of 2 movements each in a Brouwer and Berio vein where he experiments with different timbers and percussive sounds of the classical guitar plus the addition of 8 finger tapping technique most common in electric guitar, he has also completed an string orchestra piece of 3 movements with a very fusion feel mixed with some other influences such as Bartok, Piazzolla and Stravinsky but keeping a high degree of originality.