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Renzo Staiano is a musician of extraordinary versatility. He performs professionally on six- and eight-string acoustic and electric guitars, Cuban tres , Andean charango , and other Latin American guitars. As a performer and scholar, his career has thus far taken him to five continents. Renzo first knew he could achieve success through music when, at the age of 17, he won first prize in a local guitar competition sponsored by KMBY, a local radio station. The inspiration born of that initial success carried Renzo to the Musician's Institute of Technology in Hollywood, and later, to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he graduated in 1997 with top honors. In 2006, he completed his M.A. in Latin American ethnomusicology at University of California at Santa Cruz, specializing in coastal Peruvian guitar performance under the auspices of the prominent ethnomusicologist, John Schechter. Renzo is fluent in Spanish, which has facilitated his musical studies in Spain, Mexico, Peru, and Argentina. For twelve years, he has taught guitar, music theory, and music history, privately, and in a university setting. Recently, Renzo studied classical guitar with the acclaimed Turkish guitarist Mesut Özgen and world-renowned Barrios scholar Rico Stover. Renzo possesses a profound knowledge of diverse musical styles including jazz, blues, funk, pop, European classical, and numerous Latin American genres. He is an active composer and arranger, currently working with his bandmates in world fusion group Universal Language and Latin rock band deSol , with whom Renzo has just completed a Middle Eastern tour. Renzo's work as an arranger has been featured on the Fox network's television show, Party of Five . In addition, Renzo has worked with UCSC professor Fredric Lieberman as an expert consultant in various music piracy cases, and he has transcribed music for Cartoon Network's Home Movies , and Metalocalypse , which feature the musician/comedian Brendon Small. Renzo has performed with many accomplished musicians, including members of: Peru Negro, Acoustic Alchemy, Savoy Brown, The Doobie Brothers, Spearhead, Maná and Santana, and he has shared the stage with the likes of Ozomatli, Maxi Priest, and Thomas Mapfumo.