Dr. Raphael Pazo, Highland Bagpiper

I was born into a family of gifted musicians who encouraged and supported my musical education from an early age. My first music teacher was my father, Don Rafael Pazo, who taught me to play Spanish guitar when I was 4 years old. My mother also enrolled me in private piano lessons until I was accepted at the Escuela Libre de Música and the Instituto de Música Juan Morel Campos in my native Ponce, Puerto Rico, where I studied piano, violin, viola, voice, theory, solfège counterpoint, choral music, ear training, and music dictation. I sang in a boys’ choir and a chorale, and played violin and viola in the institute’s chamber music orchestra and the youth symphony orchestra.