Roberto Torres

Roberto Torres is a Chilean-born musician, composer, and researcher living and working in Lausanne. His work explores the intersection of artistic practice, migration, and forms of resistance. Trained in both music theory and popular music in Chile, he later earned an MA in Cultural Management from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and is currently a PhD candidate in Social Sciences at the University of Lausanne, where he has researched the mobility of traditional Colombian Caribbean musicians of the gaita and bullerengue between Colombia and Europe, especially in Switzerland. This work has led him to live for a couple of years in the Caribbean region of Colombia and to get to know the local musical and transnational context of these cultural practices.

 

He is a composer, singer and performer on guitar, classical piano, accordion and electric bass. He is passionate about Latin American Andean music and its instruments, and also plays the charango, quena and zampoñas with virtuosity.

 

Moving fluidly across disciplines, Roberto has collaborated with theater, cinema, and circus artists, expanding his artistic practice beyond conventional musical boundaries. In 2016, his musical composition for the film Tila, fragmentos de un psicópata was nominated in the category of best Chilean film music at the Viña del Mar International Film Festival (FICVIÑA).

 

He is a member of Bloque Guarapo and other musical projects in Switzerland. Since 2017, he has also played a key role in fostering interdisciplinary artistic encounters in Lausanne as the founder of FOL Festival.