Carlos Federico Sepúlveda, born and raised in Medellín, studied with Cecilia Espinosa and Lise Frank at the Instituto Musical Diego Echavarría there. He then studied choral conducting and orchestral conducting with Urs Lajovic, Günther Theuring, Erwin Ortner and Johannes Prinz at the University of Music in Vienna, graduating with distinction in 2001. After postgraduate studies in early music theory at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, he has been a lecturer for theory subjects and head of studies and deputy director of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (SCB) there since 2005. He has been a member of the SCB’s management team since autumn 2022.
Federico Sepúlveda is the initiator of the Master’s programme in music at the Universidad Central in Bogotá and has made a significant contribution to increasing the importance of historical performance practice in music education in Colombia. He is also the artistic director of the educational project “Música antigua para nuestro tiempo” (Early Music for Our Time) in Colombia, which has been run by the Schola Cantorum and the Banco de la República for 15 years.
Sepúlveda has conducted the Vienna Chamber Choir, the Orchestra of the City of Granada, the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bratislava Radio Orchestra and the Yucatan Symphony Orchestra, among others. He works with numerous choirs and ensembles and is the director of the ensemble Ars Humana. Since the foundation of La Cetra Vokalensemble Basel by Andrea Marcon in 2012, he has been its director / maestro al coro.
Together with Andrea Marcon, he has rehearsed numerous works with La Cetra Vokalensemble, including the Mass in B minor and the St John Passion by J. S. Bach, Handel’s Messiah, Juditha Triumphans by Vivaldi, the Vespro di Natale by Monteverdi and Der Tag des Gerichts by G. Ph. Telemann.