Diangelo Cicilia

* 1971 in Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles); classical guitarist. He studied guitar at the Rotterdams Conservatorium, among others with Martin Kaaij, and graduated there with distinction. He then continued his studies at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag with Enno Voorhorst, where he graduated cum laude and with a special distinction for the promotion of contemporary music, and studied for a year with Eliot Fisk at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he won the Wild Card competition with the Ensemble Sauvage. In addition he took orchestration with Klaas de Vries as well as percussion and trumpet with Wim Vos and Ad van Zon. He was awarded the Special Young Talent Award of the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, the Hoge School Beurs of the Koninklijk Conservatorium and a grant from the Fonds Podiumkunsten. He gave the first performance of the new national anthem of the Netherlands Antilles in his own guitar version and premiered numerous contemporary works that composers from various parts of the world have written for him and dedicated to him. He appears on radio and television in the Netherlands, South America, the USA, the Caribbean and Japan, gives workshops in various parts of the world and is a soloist for Latin American and contemporary guitar literature. According to his website he lives in Japan and forms a duo for violin and guitar with Mariko Cicilia. In 2005 Cybele released the SACD New Dutch Guitar Music with works dedicated to him by Jo Sporck and Frank Crijns as well as Luciano Berio’s “Sequenza XI”.