VICTOR MANUEL RUIZ DEL VALLE
Victor Ruiz was born in Mexico City in 1960. He began his musical studies in 1977 at the Escuela Superior de Música del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. The following year he entered the National Conservatory of Music, studying classical guitar for six years with the internationally acclaimed Professor Guillermo Flores Méndez.
In 1984 he entered the Cardenal Miranda Institute of Liturgical Music and Arts, where he continued his study of classical guitar with Professor Flores Mendez
He has been involved in a variety of musical disciplines, including music for theater, cinema and dance. In 1981 he recorded his first album, independently produced, with the progressive rock group Flüght, voted best of the year by a panel of music critics, reedited and reissued at the end of 1999. He performed with Flüght at the XIII Festival Internacional Cervantino and The first Jazz Festival in Guanajuato, México, in addition to other concerts at a variety of theaters and universities in Mexico.
A self-taught electric bassist, he played the bass with the Mexican/Salvadorian group Yolocamba Itá, from 1987 to 1992. The group performed in numerous international festivals, among them the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, The WOMAD Festival in Toronto, the Glasgow Mayfest Festival, the Víctor Jara Festival in Amsterdam, and the Boulder Folk and Bluegrass Festival, as well as giving concerts in a wide variety of venues, including the Smithsonian Institution. Also with Yolocamba Itá, he recorded two compact discs, Cara o Cruz (Flying Fish Records, USA, 1989) and Canciones para la Nueva Vida (CEBES, Nicaragua, 1990), in addition to participating in the film Romero starring Raúl Julia (Paulist Pictures, USA, 1988).
Since 1992, he has developed his abilities as an arranger and producer, while continuing a 21 year career as a music teacher. From 1996 to 1998 he was musical director, arranger, and producer of the group Ensemble Musical of the Universidad Tecnológica de México, for which he produced various concerts and three compact discs.
In 1998 he resumed his formal musical studies at the Cardenal Miranda Institute of Liturgical Music and Arts, with course work in musicology, art history, guitar and composition, and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Musicology in June of 2003.
In 2000 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA), where he continued studying composition at Duquesne University and jazz guitar with Ken Karsh. He involved himself into the visual arts, video and photography, as well as web design, and marketing. He worked as a free-lance performer, teacher, recording engineer, music producer, and web master.
From 2001 – 2012 he was musical coordinator of the Latin American Cultural Union (LACU) and collaborator of an Spanish speaking newspaper “La Jornada Latina” and has performed with various local groups, playing tango, jazz, classical and folkloric music.
From 2004 to 2014 He played guitar in addition to arranging and composing for the Latin Jazz band Puro Queso Jazz Quartet, and 2012 -2014 performed the bass guitar with a band named Batamba.
He is living in Bavaria, Germany since autumn of 2014. Where he is currently learning piano’s restoration, and started performing with some local musicians. In the autumn of 2016 he was invited to perform his baritone guitar with the Mexican OSN (National Symphony Orchestra) during a tour that included Austria, Slovenia and Germany. In the summer of 2018 he recorded his first Jazz/debut album that is going to be release in the summer of 2020.
