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Two UWM Guitar Students Study and Perform Puerto Rican Music in Milwaukee

Eleanor Peterson, WUWM

Guitars have been around in one form or another for millennia, and there are as many styles as there are countries way they are played makes them unique. Spanish guitar music crossed the Atlantic ocean with the Conquistadors, and that influence can be heard in the guitar music throughout Latin America, including Puerto Rico.

Hector Torres Gonzalez and John Ruiz traveled from Puerto Rico to study guitar at the Peck School of the Arts’ classical guitar program. They came from opposite sides of the island and met each other for the first time when they began their program here. And although they study classical guitar at UWM, they took it upon themselves to learn Puerto Rican guitar music on their own.

Hector Torres Gonzalez and John Ruiz, two Puerto Rican guitarists, study at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts in the classical guitar program. They are performing a UWM guitar recital Thursday evening at 7:30 at the Plymouth Church on E. Hampshire St.