Valerio Licari was born in Rome, Italy, in 1981. From 1994 to 1998 he studied classical guitar with M° Arnaldo Rotella. In 1999 he received his high school diploma in Sciences and built his first electric guitar.

In the year 2000 he enrolled at the faculty of Humanities at “Tor Vergata” University, Rome. He chose a degree in “Musical Arts and Performance”, and took courses in sound analysis and synthesis.

From 2000 to 2004 he specialized in the American repertoire of delta-blues and ragtime, whilst studying acoustic guitar and fingerpicking under M° Francis H. Koerber.

In 2005, at Il Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (the Italian Institute for Africa and the East), he completed the cataloguing of, and organological research into, their photographic, and musical instruments collections respectively. Concurrently, he began studying the violin with M° Gabriele Benigni. In 2006, he completed his BA in ethnomusicology with honors. That same year, in Cremona, Italy, he enrolled in the International School of Violin Making “Antonio Stradivari” (I.P.I.A.L.L).

In 2010, he began his collaboration with the magazine “Liuteria, musica, cultura” and published an article on the musical instruments of the Horn of Africa. That year, he also took on an internship in bow making with M° Paolo Pamiro. In 2011 he received his diploma at the I.P.I.A.L.L, under supervision of M° Ernesto Vaia.

In 2012, he worked for six months as guitar wood production manager at Tonewood International in Cremona, Italy. That September, he moved to Malaga, Spain, for a six-month apprenticeship with classical guitar maker M° Daniele Chiesa. It was then he decided to stay in Spain definitively, in order to study deeper its traditional methods in classical and flamenco guitar making. He eventually set up his own workshop in Granada, the city where he currently works and lives.

As of 2015, the Town Hall of Granada has ceded Licari a workshop in the Craft Center of the Albayzin, “El Gallo”, in recognition of his traditional approach to handcrafted lutherie.

At the end of 2019 he decided to end the experience in Spain. He returned permanently to Italy and opened his own workshop in Turin.

Starting from the 2021-22 Academic year, he will be the Master teacher of full-time and part-time courses of plucked instruments construction.