Bardo Trujillo: Shredding the Guitar in Spanish

Bardo Trujillo first experienced the rush of the rapport between the rock guitarist and the audience in fourth grade, when he played The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin in the school talent show. In birdwatching jargon, this was his spark bird; for him, his spark performance. He was hooked. From there he took off on a lifelong career in music, specializing in classical, rock, metal, New Mexican, country, jazz, and pop. He holds a bachelor's degree in Guitar Performance and a master’s in performance on the classical guitar. Since fourth grade, he has played in over a dozen bands, with names like Traveler in Pain, Prince of Darkness, Especial, Bad Obsession, Malvado, and more. For over 20 years he has taught guitar at Cibola High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, leading his students to an unprecedented number of awards in district and state performance competition. Bardo was also an integral part of redesigning the music teacher’s annual evaluation so that it reflected the performance of the teacher’s students instead of how high a score they could achieve on a paper-and-pencil, multiple choice, high-stakes, standardized music test. Though Bardo is not certified as a bilingual teacher, he grew up in Taos, New Mexico, listening to his parents and relatives speaking Spanish in various cultural contexts. He is currently recapturing his Spanish and using it extensively in his guitar classes, pointing out the logic behind using the Spanish language while learning to play an instrument that was brought directly from Spain to New Mexico. In that regard, Bardo is an excellent example of how one does not necessarily have to be deemed officially bilingual to use his heritage language—as well as other languages spoken by his students—as effective and meaningful teaching and learning tools in his classroom. We also discuss English learnings and emergent bilinguals. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Contrary to what you'll hear in this episode, New Mexico guitar legend John Truitt is not "late" in any sense of the word. He's alive and well and still inspiring guitar players. It is guitar professor Michael Chapdelaine who has passed onto to the great fretboard in the sky. We regret the error in this episode. 

Visit Bardo's website at: http://www.bardotrujillo.com