Musical Directors

Daniel Alejandro Tapia-Santiago

  Maestro Daniel Alejandro Tapia-Santiago was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received part of his initial instruction in the choral arts at Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola under the tutelage of Professor José Daniel Flores-Caraballo. In 1993 he was admitted into the Music Department at the University of Puerto Rico, from where he graduated with a Bachelor in Arts in Music, Magna Cum Laude. From 1995, he began to study the harpsichord with Puerto Rican harpsichordist Mónica Rivera de Carrasquillo, and worked as Musical Director of Capella Nianti Yarí vocal ensemble. In 1999 he was awarded with a merit-based full scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the Yale University School of Music and the Yale University Institute of Sacred Music. He graduated from Yale with a Master in Music degree in Choral Conducting. Maestro Tapia-Santiago has received several distinctions amongst which is the Hugh Porter Award, given by Yale University to outstanding graduates from the Choral Conducting Department. Since August 2001, he is the Musical and Artistic Director of Orfeón San Juan Bautista and President of GD & E Orfeón San Juan Bautista Corporation. From 2001 to 2008 he worked as music professor at Colegio Nuestra Señora de Belén, and currently directs the educational program at the Orfeón San Juan Bautista Choral Academy.

  In 2008 he was awarded with a second merit-based full scholarship from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he currently pursues doctoral studies in choral and orchestral conducting.

Guarionex Morales Matos

  Guarionex Morales-Matos was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He studied Visual Arts (Design and Painting) at the Central School for Visual Arts in Santurce, Puerto Rico. In 1993 he graduated with a Bachelor in Public Communications degree, Magna Cum Laude, from the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras. At that same institution, he currently pursues a Master's Degree in Arts Administration and Cultural Endeavors. Founder and creator of Orfeón San Juan Bautista, he has composed more than a hundred works between choral arrangements and original compositions which include sacred music, secular academic music, folkloric pieces and popular selections. Morales-Matos collaborated as an independent composer and arranger for the editorial company Grupo Santillana. Moreover, he is director at the Board of the University of Puerto Rico Alumni Association as well as a radio program producer at Cadena Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico, the state university broadcast station. He is currently Orfeón San Juan Bautista's Musical and Artistic Co-Director and GD & E Orfeón San Juan Bautista Corporation's Auxiliary President. He is also a music professor and the administrator of the Orfeón San Juan Bautista Choral Academy.