Saudade Duo

The Saudade Duo is a half-Cuban, half-Italian ensemble comprised of violinist Eddy Betancourt and guitarist Jacopo Lazzaretti. Both current Live Music Now Scotland’s artists; Both current Live Music Now Scotland’s artists, they created the Suadade Duo in 2022 to explore the possibilities of the guitar and violin repertoire together, with the goal of bringing live music to as many people as possible.

Eddy Betancourt is a virtuoso violinist from Cuba, currently based in Glasgow. He graduated from the Conservatory of Vigo (Spain), the University of Aveiro (Portugal), the Conservatorium Van Amsterdam and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. During this period of intense education, he had the opportunity to study under the guidance of Andrea Gajic, Roberto Valdés, Ilya Grubert, Francesco Belli, Cristóbal Soler, Walter Themel, Rafael Montes, Jean- Marc Burfin, Jean-Sébastien Béreau, Mikhail Bezverkhny, José Francisco del Castillo, Jela Spitkova and Adrian Pinzaru.

While studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Eddy enjoyed masterclasses with Nicola Benedetti, Alina Ibragimova and Joseph Swensen, as well as winning the Louis Carus Duo Ensemble Prize, Dunbar-Gerber Prize for Chamber Music, Governors’ Recital Prize for Strings 2017.

Jacopo Lazzaretti is a versatile and exciting guitarist from Rome, currently based in Glasgow. He graduated from the Conservatoire of Santa Cecilia in Rome in 2017 and completed the Master’s Degree in Performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in June 2019. Jacopo has performed in many masterclasses with some of the world’s most well-known guitarists and he has been strongly inspired by musicians such as Arturo Tallini, Giulio Tampalini, Matthew McAllister, Allan Neave and Pavel Steidl.

As a soloist, he has played in many concerts in Italy as well as abroad and won several prizes in national and international guitar competitions, such as 30th Young Musician International Competition Città di Barletta (2020), 8° International Competition Alirio Diaz of Rome (2019), North East Scotland Classical Guitar Society Award (2017). Since 2018, he has been a solo artist for Live Music Now Scotland.

Jacopo and Eddy are very excited to be working together as part of Live Music Now Scotland and they can’t wait to bring their music to you.