Álvaro Severino is a Chilean guitarist, composer and educator based in Germany. His work develops at the intersection of contemporary jazz, improvisation and South American musical traditions, exploring the possibilities of the guitar and composition from a perspective shaped by migration, transformation and dialogue between different musical languages.

Born in Santiago, Chile, Severino began his artistic path while studying architecture before eventually dedicating himself fully to music. His formative years and early professional work were closely connected to Santiago’s jazz, soul and popular music scenes. In 2011, he moved to Germany, where he began a new stage of his artistic and professional development.

The experience of migrating from South America to Europe and building his artistic life in Germany gradually became one of the central elements of his work. Geographical and cultural distance led him to reconsider rhythms, forms and materials drawn from different South American traditions—not as elements to be reproduced literally, but as points of departure for transformation and creation. His music combines these references with contemporary harmony, improvisation, open forms and a continuous exploration of the guitar’s sonic possibilities.

The release of Ngen-Kürüf in 2018 marked an important stage in this process. The album brought together original compositions inspired by a variety of South American musical traditions and established the foundations of a compositional search that has continued to evolve toward increasingly open, abstract and personal forms.

His work as a composer also extends beyond jazz into dance, theatre and interdisciplinary creation. He has developed original music and sound design for stage productions in both institutional and independent contexts, collaborating with choreographers, collectives and dance and theatre companies. This work expands his musical research into the relationships between sound, body, space, text and movement.

At the same time, the guitar remains his primary field of exploration. His approach to the instrument encompasses performance, improvisation, composition, and harmonic and timbral experimentation, moving between acoustic and electric instruments, effects and different forms of sound production. Rather than understanding the guitar solely as a solo or accompanying instrument, Severino approaches it as an open space for constructing textures, structures and new musical possibilities.

Education constitutes another central dimension of his professional practice. As an educator, his work focuses not only on instrumental technique, but also on harmony, rhythm, improvisation, composition and, above all, the development of an individual musical voice. His teaching practice is closely connected to his own experience as a performer and composer.

Across these different areas, Álvaro Severino’s work is driven by the same underlying pursuit: transforming experiences, traditions and musical materials into a personal and contemporary language. His practice connects his South American roots with an artistic trajectory developed in Europe, bringing together composition and improvisation, tradition and experimentation, performance and interdisciplinary creation.