Venezuelan cellist Horacio Contreras has gained esteem through a multifaceted career as a concert cellist, chamber musician, pedagogue, and scholar. He has collaborated with prestigious institutions across the Americas and Europe as a concerto soloist, a recitalist, a chamber musician, and a master class clinician. 


Highlights of his career include solo performances with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and the Municipal Orchestra of Caracas (Venezuela), the EAFIT University  Orchestra (Colombia), the Camerata de France (France), and the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra and the Music Institute of Chicago’s Chamber Orchestra in the US; participations in series and festivals including Salzburg, Casals, Schubert Club, New York’s Chopin & Friends, Indiana University’s Salon Latino, and Chicago’s Celebración de la Música Latinoamericana; and master classes at Bloomington, Juilliard, Michigan, Oberlin and the ASTA National Convention, as well as at many renowned programs throughout the Americas. Recent projects include world premieres of works by Ricardo Lorenz, Miguel del Águila and Reinaldo Moya, the recording of the works for cello and piano by Ricardo Lorenz with the Blue Griffin record label, the recording of an album with the Reverón Piano Trio featuring piano trios by Villa-Lobos, Ponce, and Turina with the IBS Classical record label, and a full edition of Ricardo Castro’s cello concerto commissioned by Afa Dworkin and the Sphinx Organization.

Horacio serves on the faculty of the University of North Texas, the Music Institute of Chicago and the University of Michigan’s MPulse summer institute Center Stage Strings. His students have made solo recordings, soloed nationally and internationally, attended festivals such as Kronberg, Aspen, Orford and Académie Internationale d’Été de Nice, and won awards at international and national competitions. They have continued their education at institutions including Michigan, San Francisco Conservatory, the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne in Switzerland, and Mannheim and Weimar in Germany. Some of his former students have pursued successful careers as orchestral musicians, chamber musicians, teachers, and freelancers. Others have devoted their energies to grow in other professional areas and enjoy a meaningful connection with music through the cello.

He is the founder and artistic director of Strings of Latin America, an official partner to the Sphinx Organization with the purpose of social engagement through the promotion of diversity in the classical music world. As a part of his efforts to help diversifying the repertoire, he coauthored The Sphinx Catalog of Latin-American Cello Works, a comprehensive database with information about works for cello written by Latin American composers created in partnership with the Sphinx Organization and CelloBello.org. His pedagogic book Exercises for the Cello in Various Combinations of Double-Stops has received recognition as a significant contribution to the instrument’s literature.

He is a member of the Four Corners Ensemble and the Reverón Piano Trio. He started his musical studies in Venezuela through El Sistema, and holds degrees from the Conservatoire National de Région de Perpignan, France, the Escola de Musica de Barcelona, Spain, and the University of Michigan. He is represented by Meluk Kultur Management and Halac Artists together with his colleagues of the Reverón Piano Trio.