Roberto Sierra was born on 9 October 1953 in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music in London and at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, where he worked notably with György Ligeti from 1979 to 1982. He came to wider prominence in 1987 when his orchestral work Júbilo was performed at Carnegie Hall by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He later taught composition as a professor at Cornell University, from which he is now retired.

Sierra is one of the most widely performed Puerto Rican composers of contemporary classical music, blending Caribbean and Latin American rhythmic idioms with a European concert-music training. His guitar concerto Concierto Barroco, written for Manuel Barrueco, and smaller solo guitar works such as Salseado have entered the wider classical guitar repertoire.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Sierra