Guitarist, composer and educator Carlos Atilano was born in Caracas Venezuela 
on July 7th, 1952.  Very early in his childhood he was exposed to Venezuelan folk music influences by playing the “cuatro”, a small four course guitar from Venezuela.  After almost completing his music studies at the conservatory in Caracas he got a full scholarship from the Venezuelan government to study at “The Boston Conservatory of Music” in Boston Massachusetts, were he received his Bachelor of Music, Applied Guitar. 

Most of Carlos Atilano’s pieces for guitar have their roots in the folklore of his native land; Venezuela.  Carlos Atilano’s compositions had been well represented in many international guitar festivals like Rust International Guitar Festival in Austria, Brno in the Czech Republic, The Gronitki  and Olsztyn international guitar festitivals in Poland.  Of the Venezuelan pieces on this album, he states:
        “All the Venezuelan pieces that I have written were inspired by pure love for my
native land.  Being away from Venezuela brings in me a kind of  nostalgia and that nostalgia comes from longing for my homeland, its music, places and the aroma of the tropics.  All of these things are conveyed in each of my Venezuelan folk pieces.
 
My Three Venezuelan pieces: Aire Criollo, Cancion and Valse, along with  El
Vals de Gregorio, are a good example of that nostalgia, happiness and longing. The first
 three were composed in Caracas in 1984 and were dedicated to Antonio Ochoa, my first
 guitar teacher at the Conservatorio de Musica Juan Jose Landaeta. They were premiered
in 1987 by the Venezuelan guitarist Gabriel Guillen. El Vals de Gregorio was dedicated to my good friend and excellent guitarist Gregg Nestor. This piece was composed in 1991 as a “thank you” to Gregg, who really loved these pieces  and decided to record them. They were among my first attempts to compose Venezuelan folk music for guitar.

The pieces of Carlos Atilano performed in this compact disk by guitarist Gregg Nestor can be obtained from Joachim- Trekel- Musikverlag, Hamburg, Germany
www.trekel.de  Willerswiete
17, D-22415 Hamburg.