Willy Ríos

A musician for forty years now, Willy Ríos began his career at the age of 11 at the MASIS cultural center in Sucre, Bolivia, with the charango as his main instrument.

In 1988 he joined the group Los Masis, touring South America, Europe and finally Canada, which became his adopted country.

In Montreal, in 1993, he joined several musical projects that later took him to Japan, Australia, Germany, France, Chile and Bolivia.

In 2008 he was invited to take part in the project and television program La Sinfonía del Nuevo Mundo (ARTV). That same year, Cirque du Soleil invited him to record a song on the album Totem.

In 2014 he started teaching charango online: that is how the Charangueando school was born.

Willy has recorded more than 15 albums with different artists in Canada and Japan. He released his first album as arranger and composer in 2015, a record you can hear the multicultural music of Montreal in.

In 2016 he was named World Music Solo Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards for his album Para ti.

In 2017 he decided to return to his native Bolivia to devote himself full time to Charangueando, the online school and the school in Sucre.