The pianist and conductor Ricardo Castro is the Founder and General Director of a new system of youth orchestras in Bahia, NEOJIBA (State Youth and Children’s Orchestra Centers of Bahia), created in 2007 in collaboration with the Venezuelan “El Sistema.” He is also the first ever Latin-American to win in 1993 the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition. Concerts followed in some of the world’s major concert halls and with the finest orchestras and conductors. Since 1992 Ricardo Castro teaches piano at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne in Switzerland.