Roberto is a composer, violinist, multi-instrumentalist, and conductor based in Austin, Texas. Born in Monterrey, México and raised between Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, he has spent four decades building a musical life at the crossroads of cultures — performing, composing, and collaborating across Arabic, Hindustani, flamenco, West African, and Latin traditions with the depth that comes from genuine study and long relationship.

His teachers have included some of the great masters of the 20th century: Simon Shaheen, under whom he served many times as concertmaster at the Arabic Music Retreat; Pandit Ram Narayan, the legendary sarangi master who told him “You will be great in your own music, and it will be because you studied Indian music”; and Ali Akbar Khan, with whom he studied at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California.

He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and stages across North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East — sharing the stage with Fairuz, Youssou N’Dour, Kazem Al-Saher, Simon Shaheen, Mai Farouk, Nai Barghouti, Dina El Wedidi, Eyvind Kang, and others. He performs regularly with the National Arab Orchestra, founded by Michael Ibrahim.

In Austin, where he has been an active presence in the music community for decades, he is the founder of Atash — a seven-time Austin Music Award-winning world music ensemble — and has directed Bereket, the Middle Eastern music ensemble at the University of Texas at Austin. Over the years he has collaborated with an extraordinarily diverse range of Austin artists, including Oliver Rajamani, Nagavalli, Fared Shafinury, the Latin Dukes, Dustin Welch, Cowboy Donley, and countless others.

In 2024 he founded AMAI — Ars Mundi Artists International — to give formal shape to a vision he has carried his whole life: that music and the arts, the natural expressions of all humanity, are where difference becomes harmony.