Biography
Felipe Díaz de Vivar is a journalist, photographer, musician and teacher based in Germany. His work develops at the intersection of writing, research, photography, interviews and music, with a particular interest in culture, technology, musical instruments, creative processes and the human stories behind different crafts.
Education and early years
He began his musical training in Tandil, Argentina, during his adolescence. At the age of 14, he started playing guitar and, in 2014, entered the Isaías Orbe Conservatory, where he studied musical training, music theory and guitar. That early period marked a deep relationship with music, understood not only as an artistic practice but also as a way of observing, thinking and building his own identity.
In 2015, he completed his secondary education at SAFA school in Tandil. Shortly afterward, he moved to Buenos Aires, where he studied Advertising at UADE —Universidad Argentina de la Empresa— between 2016 and 2019. That education brought him closer to the world of communication, writing, strategy, content production and audience analysis. Although his path would later move toward journalism, photography and music, advertising gave him tools to understand how messages are built, how ideas circulate and how projects are presented to different audiences.
During those years, he also continued his musical training. In addition to the Isaías Orbe Conservatory, he studied at the Astor Piazzolla Conservatory in Buenos Aires, where he deepened his connection with composition, guitar and music theory. Over time, his path expanded toward other instruments and languages, incorporating cello, harmonica and piano. This broad relationship with music shaped a practice marked by performance, composition, improvisation, teaching and sonic exploration.
Music and sound production
In 2017, together with Roger Rotonda, he formed the band Farol Siete. The project lasted a little over a year, but it was an important experience in his early stage as a musician, allowing him to work in a group format, compose, rehearse, perform live and develop his own artistic identity within a band.
After that experience, he continued mainly as a solo artist, performing in bars in Buenos Aires and participating as a guest in different musical projects. From that point on, his musical work began to take on a more personal form. He composed, recorded and edited his own songs, exploring the guitar and other sonic resources. Among his pieces are “Downwind,” “Endless Road,” “Momentos,” “Freedom” and “Reminiscence,” works connected to melody, atmosphere and the emotional construction of sound.
In parallel, he began developing a side of his work linked to audiovisual and sound production. In 2018, he created a musical theme for El Eco de Tandil, one of his first experiences applying music to a media project. That connection between music, media and content production anticipated much of his later path: a profile capable of writing, interviewing, photographing, recording, editing and thinking about projects through multiple creative layers.
Podcasts and interviews
In 2021, he launched the podcast “Personajes de Tandil,” an interview project dedicated to conversations with different personalities connected to the city. The podcast emerged as a way to record stories, careers and local perspectives, but also as a practical school in interviewing, editing, scripting and production. Each episode involved preparing for the interview, researching the guest’s background, conducting the conversation, recording and editing the material.
That process consolidated a way of working that he would later bring into other journalistic projects: arriving at an interview with context, listening carefully and building a conversation that makes it possible to understand not only what a person does, but how they came to do it.
After “Personajes de Tandil,” he developed “Felipe Díaz de Vivar Podcast,” an interview project with professionals from different disciplines. There, he spoke with recognized figures from science, art, dance, culture and contemporary thought. His guests include theoretical physicist Gastón Giribet, molecular biologist Alberto Kornblihtt, visual artist Milo Lockett, researcher and essayist Paula Sibilia and flamenco dancer Olga Pericet.
These conversations consolidated a line of work centered on dialogue with people who have built singular careers in very different fields, from physics and molecular biology to visual arts, dance, the philosophy of technology and cultural studies. As an interviewer, Felipe developed a direct, curious and detail-oriented style, focused on understanding the processes behind a work, a career or a discipline.
Journalism and photography
His interest in ideas was also reflected in his first published texts. In 2021, he published “Redes sociales: El enemigo invisible,” an article about the everyday use of social media and its effects on attention, behavior and daily life. In 2022, he published “La tendencia a creer en Dios” in El Espectador, addressing questions linked to religion, the search for meaning, tradition and the human need to believe.
After living and working in Argentina, Felipe began an international stage that broadened his professional and personal perspective. He lived in Colombia, Spain and Germany, experiences that shaped his relationship with languages, migration, intercultural communication and the construction of a career outside his country of origin. That journey also transformed the way he looks at stories: his work increasingly began to connect local culture with global processes, traditional crafts with technology, and individual trajectories with broader social contexts.
In Spain, he completed the Master’s in Journalism at El Mundo and CEU San Pablo University in Madrid. That period was decisive for his consolidation as a journalist. During his time at El Mundo, he worked in newsroom writing and photojournalism, participating in coverage, interviews and reports. His training in Madrid allowed him to integrate several skills he had already been developing separately: writing, research, visual judgment, interview production and fieldwork.
At El Mundo, he conducted interviews for the Gran Madrid section, combining writing with photography of the interviewees. His work included profiles and reports on figures from Madrid’s cultural life, traditional crafts, urban spaces, musical projects and activities connected to the city’s cultural scene. He also published the article “Hablar con sonidos: los procesos de la mente al improvisar música,” an investigation into musical improvisation and the cognitive processes involved in it.
As a photographer, he worked for El Mundo in both print and digital editions, developing a documentary eye oriented toward telling stories through images, recording scenes, portraying people and building visual material that complements the writing. This dual ability —to write and photograph— became one of his most important professional tools, allowing him to approach a story in a more complete and autonomous way.
Current work
From Germany, Felipe works as a freelance journalist, photographer, musician and teacher. He develops reports, interviews and writing projects for international media, with a particular interest in companies, institutions, workshops, factories, laboratories and spaces where culture intersects with technique.
Over time, his journalistic profile has moved toward stories about music, technology, instruments, manufacturing, innovation and material culture. His experience as a musician allows him to understand instruments and sonic processes from within; his journalistic training gives him the tools to research, interview and narrate them; and his photographic work allows him to document those worlds visually.
In 2026, he published an article in MusicTech about Fraunhofer IIS, the German institute linked to the development of the MP3 and later technologies such as MPEG-H. For that piece, he visited the institute in Erlangen, interviewed Bernhard Grill —one of the key figures in the history of the MP3— and documented the evolution of audio research from compression to immersive, adaptive and object-based sound.
This kind of work reflects a clear direction in his career: not limiting himself to writing about music as cultural consumption, but investigating the systems, people, technologies and decisions that make it possible for music to exist, circulate and transform. Rather than focusing only on the final result —a song, an instrument, an audio format— his perspective seeks to enter the process: who makes it, how it works, what history it carries, what problems it tries to solve and what it reveals about the culture of a given time.
In addition to his journalistic work, he teaches music in international contexts. He teaches guitar, theory, improvisation, performance and composition, adapting his lessons to each student’s level and interests. His teaching experience combines academic training, stage practice and a flexible view of music, understood not only as technique but also as language.
His trajectory can be read as the intersection of several areas of training: music gave him an ear, discipline and sensitivity toward processes; advertising gave him tools for communication and presentation; journalism gave him method, narrative judgment and work with sources; photography allowed him to develop a visual perspective; and international experience added a broader view of culture, work and identity.
Throughout his career, Felipe has collaborated with media outlets such as MusicTech, El Mundo, El Espectador and Perfil. He has also produced and hosted his own podcasts, released music on digital platforms, worked in radio, practiced photojournalism, taught music and developed writing and photography projects from different countries.
His work is increasingly oriented toward in-depth reports on music, technology, instruments, manufacturing, material culture and creative processes. From Germany, he seeks to tell stories that connect tradition and innovation: instrument factories, audio laboratories, specialized crafts, creators, researchers and companies that transform the way we listen, play, produce and understand music.
His biography does not follow a single line, but rather a deeper continuity: understanding how people create, think, work and leave a mark on what they do. Whether through an interview, a photograph, a lesson, a song or a report, his work is sustained by the same concern: entering the process, listening carefully and finding the story behind each practice.