Santiago Jara is a musician, record producer and composer from Argentina who has been deeply immersed in music from a young age. Through the formation of various bands and his involvement in numerous projects, Santiago honed a unique sensitivity for composing and arranging both his own work and that of other artists. This journey has also allowed him to explore a wide array of musical genres, further enriching his creative expression. With a profound appreciation for other art forms like cinema and poetry, Santiago has expanded his artistic horizons, collaborating with short film directors, photographers, painters, and writers on innovative projects.
In early 2020, he released his debut studio album, Desarmado, a collection of pieces specially composed for guitar. Though the album was launched in 2020, it was originally written and recorded in 2012, driven by an urgent need to capture his ideas despite having limited tools at the time. However, it wasn’t until 2020 that Jara decided to remix and finally master the record for its official release. The minimalist audio and song structure create a relaxed atmosphere, allowing listeners to connect with their inner selves and awaken their deepest emotions. It's an album tailor-made for adventurers who enjoy journeying into the vastness of nature, disarmed before the world, carrying only these beautiful melodies in their backpacks.
Just months after releasing Desarmado, Jara presented a fresh, clear, and modern production: Songtravel. This album compiles historic songs that accompanied him on a concert tour through Europe. These melodies have profoundly shaped and influenced the guitarist's life, and he felt compelled to pay tribute to them.
Following these two releases, Jara unveiled more material he had been holding onto for years: Lesson Black, a conceptual album written between 2007 and 2011 but only released in 2021. In this work, the artist showcases his vocal abilities for the first time, alongside his talent for producing and performing with other instruments like synthesizers, piano, and percussion. The lyrics, deeply conceptual, narrate a personal love story that didn’t endure but unleashed a poetic torrent within the composer. The album’s lead single, You, is a sweet and melancholic song that was accompanied by Jara’s first official music video, capturing the emotions and sensations he experienced during the writing process.
After releasing Desarmado, Songtravel, and Lesson Black, and with more studio experience under his belt, Santiago edited The Treasure of the Sacred Seeds. This song was written during his time in Valencia in 2019, where he met Julia De La Rúa, a writer, poet, and watercolorist from Salamanca committed to various social causes. Julia penned the lyrics to this beautiful song, while Santiago composed the music, lending his voice to highlight moving lines like "violence polluting the air..." and “the sacred music will be played at last...”, which resonate like a clarion call in an apathetic world.
During this intense streak of releases in 2020, Jara returned to his instrumental roots with the guitar and created Manso (Homenaje al Humedal), a bold and inspiring 20-minute improvisation. In this piece, Santiago guides listeners through vast, expansive, introspective landscapes. This composition led to a collaboration with Bentevea, a local photographer and artist from Rosario, his hometown, resulting in a joint video project that combines the solemnity of the music with images captured by the artist during a natural disaster that occurred in their city at the time.
The year 2021 marked a milestone in Santiago Jara’s career as he fully immersed himself in the production, recording, and filming of Duma, his most ambitious instrumental album to date. This album reveals the subtlety of each composition in great detail, with the perfect fusion of acoustic and nylon-string guitars slowly sculpting a landscape of vast plains, lush green fields, and endless skies. Duma is, in its purest form, a musical poem where every string’s touch can be felt, and time seems to stretch, almost reversing. As Santiago himself describes it: "that’s what days in the countryside feel like." The album also reflects his journey through northern Europe, with a brief stop in Valencia where he lived for a few months. This experience was key in inspiring pieces such as Ashtavakra – The Song of Being and Ars Amandi, Ars Moriendi, in which the guitarist unleashes a torrent of flamenco-style notes and minor harmonies. The indelible mark left on him by the Swabian land is also palpable, especially in songs like Bäume (inspired by Hermann Hesse’s book of the same name) and Ostsee (written entirely on the shores of the Baltic Sea). Of course, Duma would not be complete without mentioning the accompanying video, written and directed by his longtime friend, director Matías Bó. The video simply portrays the experience of life in the vast rural area, connecting with the present moment in all its splendor, and showcasing one of Santiago's passions: spending time in nature.
In 2023, Santiago shifted his compositional focus, exploring a musical style he had become familiar with through his main band, Sano. This led to the release of Cardinal – La Frontera, a duet of pop/electronic songs heavily influenced by '80s and '90s synthwave. At the same time, he delved deeper into the production and mixing of his own work, always collaborating with his friend and producer Matías Campos Bianchi (H3 Studios, located in Patagonia, Argentina).
This new artistic direction pushed Jara further into his creative exploration. Seizing the momentum from his dive into electronic music, he created a 22-minute soundtrack using only synthesizers and MIDI instruments. As he explains: "I channeled all my energy into exploring ambient, atmospheric, and experimental dimensions," and he succeeded, blending tense, dark climates with moments of glory and hope. The final result is BardoThödol, a work inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In this piece, Jara also invites us to explore passages inspired by the oldest known written melody: Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal/N6, transforming it into a cult masterpiece.
It’s also worth noting that alongside his solo projects, Santiago has collaborated with and produced artists from various genres such as Electronic Dance, Pop, Rock, Heavy Metal, and Rap (all available on his official YouTube channel), while maintaining his band project in Argentina, Sano.
Santiago Jara is a musician defined by a deep commitment to art in all its forms, paired with a rigorous discipline in crafting sonic worlds. For him, every breath seems to transform into a rhythm, a melody, or a poem…