Huáscar Barradas

Huáscar Barradas, a Venezuelan flutist, moves fluidly across classical repertoire, jazz idioms, and traditional music from his homeland. Beyond performing, he composes and has issued recordings in multiple stylistic veins.

Born in Maracaibo, capital of Zulia state, on June 12, 1964, Barradas first encountered classical music through Walt Disney animated films and a childhood viewing of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker at age nine. He began formal flute training at the José Luis Paz Conservatory in his native city and joined the inaugural roster of the Venezuelan National Children’s Orchestra, an ensemble created under the national El Sistema youth-music initiative. Early on he balanced this training with an interest in regional traditions, appearing with the Estudiantina Juvenil folk ensemble in Zulia. At twelve he presented his debut solo recital; during adolescence he also performed in a Caribbean-music group. At seventeen he received a Zulia state government scholarship that enabled him to pursue studies in the United States.

After placing first in a Texas junior-college contest, Barradas continued to New York, where he worked on flute with Bernard Goldberg at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, studied jazz with bassist Ron Carter at the City College of New York, and took orchestral conducting lessons with Vincent la Selva at the Juilliard School. He completed a cum-laude bachelor’s degree at Brooklyn College, then returned briefly to Venezuela for a one-year tenure as flutist in the Maracaibo Symphony Orchestra. A subsequent German-government award took him to Frankfurt, where he remained five years, concentrating on Baroque repertoire under Michael Schneider and Mirjam Nastasi at the Hochschule für Musik. During that period he made his first recording, the 1992 album Huáscar Barradas: Folklore from Venezuela.

Back in Venezuela once more, Barradas won the principal-flute chair in the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Venezuela through competitive audition and spent nine seasons with the Municipal Symphony of Caracas. He has led several groups of his own, among them the Venezuelan Acoustic Trio, with whom he recorded twice, and the versatile ensemble Huáscar Barradas y Maracaibo, which appears on multiple releases. In 2006 he issued the jazz collection My Favorite Things and the concert recording Entre Amigos. In 2022 the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra released Huáscar Barradas: Four Elements—Immersive Symphony for Orchestra and Chorus.