Alum

Claudio Ragazzi

Position
Professor
Affiliated Departments
Telephone
617-747-8067

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Grammy- and Emmy-winning film composer and guitarist Claudio Ragazzi has written award-winning music for film and television, scoring dozens of projects, and has performed with some of today's most-respected musicians at renowned concert halls around the world. While attending Berklee College of Music, where he graduated magna cum laude, Ragazzi won a Duke Ellington Masters Award and Boston Music Award. He went on to compose music for feature films, documentaries, television commercials, and commissioned works for plays and ballets.

His selected film scoring credits include Next Stop Wonderland, The Blue Diner, John Sayles's Casa de los Babys (in collaboration with Mason Daring), and Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro (in collaboration with Osvaldo Golijov). Ragazzi's music can also be heard in Something's Gotta Give, starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, and Keanu Reeves. He has scored dozens of award-winning documentaries and TV productions for Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, National Geographic, Telemundo, Univision, and PBS (American Experience, NOVA, Sesame Street, Arthur, and Postcards from Buster). He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, Blue Note Jazz Club (New York City and Tokyo), Lincoln Center, and in theaters around the world; and played with Gary Burton, Yo-Yo Ma, Regina Carter, Randy Brecker, Danilo Pérez, Joe Lovano, Branford Marsalis, Kenny Garrett, and Paquito D'Rivera, to name just a few.

A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Ragazzi grew up playing music at young age, performing with some of the country's most influential musicians. He is an active film composer, performer, and educator who teaches film composition at Berklee College of Music.

Career Highlights
  • Composer for award-winning films, including Next Stop Wonderland and The Blue Diner, and TV shows such as Arthur and Postcards from Buster
  • Performances at Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Lincoln Center, and Hollywood Bowl, with such renowned artists as Gary Burton, Joe Lovano, Yo-Yo Ma, Danilo Pérez, Paquito D'Rivera, Dave Samuels, and Pablo Ziegler
  • Leader of the Claudio Ragazzi Quartet
  • Member of the Pablo Ziegler Trio/Quintet for more than 20 years
  • Recordings with Mili Bermejo, Joe Lovano, the Claudio Ragazzi Quintet, Pablo Ziegler, and many others
  • Played guitar and composed music for Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro
  • Received Emmy nomination in 2008
Awards
  • Grammy Award winner for Pablo Ziegler's album Jazz Tango (2018)
  • Emmy Award winner (2004) 
  • Boston Music Award winner
  • Duke Ellington Masters Award winner 
Education
  • B.M., Berklee College of Music
In Their Own Words

"I believe in the complete musician. I think in order to make it professionally you need to have a specialty, like film scoring, orchestration, or production, but you also need to know how to play your instrument, arrange, produce, teach, write, and read. You never know where music will take you."

"My philosophy of teaching is based on these three basic ideas. The first is aspiring to become a complete musician, which is someone who works to achieve excellence in all aspects of their musicianship. This includes understanding the art, the business aspects, and keeping up with constant technological and mainstream changes. Second is understanding traditions—past, present, and future. Tradition means understanding changes and transformations; it means looking into the past to create the future. As film composers we also have a duty to connect, through music, to the traditions of storytelling, cinema, literature, and psychology. Third is balancing the academic world with the professional world. One of Berklee’s most important and fundamental traditions has been that most of our amazing faculty had one foot in academia and another out in the real world. As my mentors did in the past for me, I can now do the same for my students by offering my knowledge, vast experience, and perspective."