Manuel Barrueco (born December 16, 1952) is a Cuban classical guitarist. During three decades of concert performances he has performed and recorded across the United States and has been involved in many successful collaborations. In addition, he teaches at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.
Barrueco was born in Cuba on December 16, 1952.[1] Manuel Barrueco began playing the guitar at the age of eight, and he attended the Esteban Salas Conservatory in his native Cuba. He immigrated with his family to the United States in 1967 as political refugees. His first recordings aroused excitement about his skills and musical interpretation. Ever since, Barrueco has toured extensively, appearing in some of the world's most important musical centers, including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Munich, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Rome, Copenhagen, Athens, South Korea, Taipei, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Barrueco has made well over a dozen recordings for EMI, including his 2006 album, ¡Cuba!, which was called "an extraordinary musical achievement" by the San Francisco Chronicle.[2]
His performances have been broadcast by television stations such as NHK in Japan, Bayerischer Rundfunk in Germany, and RTVE in Spain. In the United States, he has been featured in a Lexus car commercial, on CBS Sunday Morning, A&E's Breakfast with the Arts, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. A one-hour documentary portrait, Manuel Barrueco: A Gift and a Life,[3] was produced in 2006. It includes several performances and interviews, in one of which he reminisces over his childhood years in Cuba, and pledges never to return until the present communist regime has come to an end.
In 2012 Barrueco was named a Fontanals Fellow of United States Artists.[4]
