Juan Pablo Siles is a Bolivian composer, arranger, and performer. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music in 2012 where he majored in Professional Music. Although his formal music training came at a later age, Juan Pablo has been involved in music in one way or another from a young age.
Juan Pablo started to show interest in music when he was six picking up the zampoña, an Andean pan flute, and playing his father’s folkloric group’s songs. Later he would take interest in guitar (his principal instrument), bass, and voice. Ultimately, though, he would find his true passion for music as a composer.
Juan Pablo has led, alongside his brother Daniel Siles, the Mexican ensemble La Especialidad de la Casa. With them Juan Pablo has released three studio works which showcased him as a leader, performer, and composer:
La Especialidad de la Casa (LP released on June 2010)
Impromptu No.1 (Live Improvised Session released Nov. 2011)
Roboro (EP released Sept. 2012)
At Berklee College of Music Juan Pablo took private Guitar lessons with Jon Damian, Jim Kelly, and Thaddeus Hogarth. Additionally, Juan Pablo has taken composition classes with Vuk Kulenovic, James Ricci, Arnold Friedman, and Richard Lowell. Kulenovic and Ricci both influenced Juan Pablo immensely, redirecting his music interests and immersing him in contemporary concert music.
Still, Juan Pablo enjoys writing in all musical styles particularly in the Rock and Jazz idioms. His graduation project focused on writing three original pieces that blended Indian classical music (mainly Hindustani) with contemporary Jazz ideas.
Juan Pablo is interested in exploring an array of music techniques that include twelve-tone, set theory, and modal harmony. His primary goal is to create music that merges all these techniques with sounds of Bolivia, India, and the Middle East.
