Carlos Vargas

Carlos Manuel Vargas is an assistant professor of music at the Conservatory. His performances have received accolades from both audiences and critics in the United States, South America, and Europe.

Reviews of Vargas’s performances in the 2022 season, which included his solo debut recital in Germany at the Musiken concert series, have described his playing as “highly emotional and thoughtful” while praising the “striking energy and uncompromising honesty” of it. Highlights of the 2023 season included a series of recitals in New England and California, featuring music from his debut album, Souvenirs, as well as his debut with the National Symphony of Ecuador, performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in honor of the composer’s 150th birth anniversary.

Vargas also is involved in several exciting projects that demonstrate the wide spectrum of his musical interests. Among them, two are of educational nature: the Roxbury Piano Program and Festival Esmeraldas.

Founded in 2008, the Roxbury Piano Program is an initiative funded by a grant from the Boston Public Library which provides free music lessons to children from Roxbury and neighboring communities in Boston. Since its inception, Vargas has been the lead instructor of the program and has worked with over 250 students from all over the city. For his work in this initiative and its impact on the community, Vargas was awarded the Berklee Urban Service Award in 2019 and was featured in the New England Emmy-nominated news report “Jossmary’s Dream,” a story about the impact of the program in the community, centered on the success of a former student.

Festival Esmeraldas is a full-tuition program that brings together some of today’s leading artists and gifted students from Latin America in a series of masterclasses, private lessons, and performances. Vargas has been a faculty member since the creation of this initiative, founded by the Ecuadorian cellist Francisco Vila, and for the past two years has served as the director of the FIME Young Artist Program.

During 2023, Vargas presented the first season of his newest musical endeavor, the Roxbury Concert Series. As artistic director of the series, his vision is to bring together a roster of artists of international recognition for a series of concerts that seeks to enrich the artistic life of the Roxbury community in Boston.

As a chamber musician, Vargas has collaborated with well-known artists such as Jorge Luis Prats, Roger Tapping, Andrey Baranov, Francisco Vila, and Owen Young. In 2012, Vargas cofounded (with Colombian violinist José Romero) the Macondo Chamber Players, an organization that brings together established and emerging artists to perform chamber music concerts throughout Latin America. Since its inception, the group has given tours in the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Turkey.

A native of the Dominican Republic, Vargas began his studies at a young age with renowned Cuban pianist and pedagogue Karelia Escalante. He was an active participant in and winner of national and international competitions, including the Manuel Rueda award in 2005 in the Dominican Republic's Festival of Latin American Music and a top prize winner of the Steinway Society of Massachusetts competition, Churchill Scholarship competition, and the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition.

Awarded the Zitrin scholarship in 2005, Vargas completed both his B.M. and M.M. at Boston Conservatory, under the guidance of Jonathan Bass. He currently resides in Boston, and also serves on the piano faculty at the New School of Music in Cambridge.

Recent Engagements

• International Music Festival of Esmeraldas—Faculty (2016)
• National Symphony of Cuenca—Soloist (2016)
• Macondo Chamber Players—Tour in Mexico (2016)
• Macondo Chamber Players—Tour in Turkey (2015)
• Macondo Chamber Players—Latin American tour (Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Colombia, 2015)