Betto Arcos

Betto Arcos is a freelance music journalist. He writes stories about music from around the world, with an emphasis on Latin America. He has been a contributor to NPR programming since 2009, when he began reviewing music for All Things Considered on the weekends.

Arcos writes stories about music from around the world, with an emphasis on Latin America. He has particularly enjoyed interviewing Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, classical composer Leo Brouwer, Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Hermeto Pascoal, Tunisian composer Anouar Brahem and Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel.

Arcos is also a contributor to BBC Radio 3 Music Planet and is a music lecturer for the State Department's Foreign Service Institute. He is the author of the book "Music Stories from the Cosmic Barrio" (Fogra Editorial, 2020), and is a contributing writer for several other works, including "Cantoras Todas – La Generación del Siglo 21" (Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, 2020) and "The Tide Was Always High – The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles" (University of California Press, 2017).

He holds a bachelor's degree with honors in journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is originally from Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.