Ricardo Gallardo was born in Mexico City, and studied at the Conservatory and the School of Music of the University of Mexico. To date, he has performed widely in the Americas and Europe in solo concerts, record releases, as well as in radio and TV broadcasts. He also studied in Canada on a scholarship from the Banff Centre for fine arts, where he played and collaborated with outstanding musicians and composers. And moved to London where he completed a masters degree in performance at City University. In 1993, he founded Tambuco, one of the world's leading percussion ensembles today. At present, Ricardo Gallardo performs constantly in Europe and the Americas, collaborating closely with several composers on new percussion pieces that are written especially for him. Due to his outstanding activity as percussionist, he has received numerous awards, such as the Mexican Council for the Arts and Culture Scholarship, the British Council Fellowship, the Stipendienpreis and Kranichsteiner Preis of the Darmstadt New Music Institute, the University of Mexico's Award for Artistic Creation, and the Mozart Gold Medal, awarded by the Austrian Embassy and Domecq Cultural Institute.