Carlos Arredondo  

Concerning my curriculum.
I define myself as a cultural worker for the range of things I do:

- I am a singer/songwriter/musician
I am a self-taught musician and singer. I play Spanish guitar, Bolivian charango, Venezuelan Cuatro, Colombian Triple and a bit of Bolivian Quena. I have written more than 50 songs. My music and style have been inspired by the great Chilean folklorists, Violeta Parra, Victor Jara. My music also has been shaped by important events in recent Chilean history. As I have been widely exposed to the Scottish folk scene I have also been influenced by Scotland musical culture.
I have performed all over Scotland, in Britain and abroad - in Chile, Peru, Canada, Italy and Sweden. I have performed many times in live shows for BBC radio.

- I promote other people's music: The songs and music of Chileans songwriters.

- I funded FABULA (For a Better Understanding of Latin America).
FABULA is my cultural umbrella that I use to promote in Scotland anything related to Latin-America.

- I have written extensively about my life in Chile and the Chilean refugee in Scotland (See my website: www.carlosarredondo.com (see MEMORIES).

- I promote the poetry of others.
As I am a keen reader of Chilean and Latin-American poetry I have always encouraged poetry and the works of poet Pablo Neruda has been a constant feature in my cultural activities.

- I write poetry.
I have not been published.
I have given recital of my poetry in Scotland (Glasgow and Edinburgh)
And I have taken part in two literary events in Sweden. (Malmo and Stockholm)
And I have translated other's people poems from the English into Spanish.

- Influences
I read a great deal of Chilean and Latin-American literature. Who do I read? To say the works I have already read or the writers of these works, is for me a sign of bad taste. What I know is that the Latin-American poets and poetess influences my poetry.

- Concerning my poetry
As an in individual I always finish kneeling down in the abyss of my existence searching for unnecessary reasons which can move my sentiments and my emotions. As a poet (It could be that I am not one) I have always felt a visceral desire to know towards where my astuteness will take me with the pretension to reveal, on a restricted piece of paper, ambiguous harmonious and inharmonious images. I write about: the existence, my own existence my country of origin, and Scotland the country where I arrived as a political exile in 1974 along with other Chileans: women an men.

- Academic
1997: University of Edinburgh (Faculty of Arts).
Degree obtained: The General Degree: Master of Arts The University of Edinburgh (Access course).

Others
- Fluent in: Spanish, English and Italian.
I have been a member of "The Performing Royal Society" (P.R.S.), since 1989.
- I love football, Colo Colo is my Chilean team and my Scottish team is Partick Thistle.