Bio:
Music and Cultural Producer & International Creative Consultant
Based in New York since 1988, São Paulo born Roberto ‘Béco’ Dranoff has been active in the international creation, production and promotion of music, cultural and entertainment projects for over 30 years. Dranoff’s Brazilian, European and American backgrounds position him as a relevant cultural bridge for international creative entertainment projects and brands. His multi-faceted career includes credits in Grammy™ and Oscar™ nominated projects, label Founder and Artistic Director, record producer and compiler, music supervisor, documentary and TV series producer, festival curator, radio host and DJ.
Having entered the industry in 1984 as Music Programmer at São Paulo's Top 40 radio station Jovem Pan 2 FM, Dranoff obtained his Bachelors degree in 1988 in Media & Mass Communications with a focus on Radio & TV from Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado / FAAP University. Upon graduating, Dranoff relocated to New York and founded Artmosphere, Inc. an agency to represent and tour manage international Brazilian stars Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and Margareth Menezes. Throughout the 1990’s, Dranoff co-produced and A&R’d the acclaimed HIV/AIDS awareness compilations Red Hot + Rio (Verve Records, 1996), Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon (Movieplay, 1998) and Red Hot + Rio 2 (E1, 2011). In 1999, he co-founded the Ziriguiboom Discos in association with Belgium’s Crammed Discs, signing and launching the international careers of acclaimed Brazilian artists Bebel Gilberto, Suba, Celso Fonseca, Zuco 103, Bossacucanova, DJ Dolores, Trio Mocotó, Apollo Nove and Cibelle. Dranoff was the A&R and co-producer of Gilberto’s three initial Grammy™ nominated albums: Tanto Tempo (Ziriguiboom, 2000), Bebel Gilberto (Ziriguiboom, 2004) and Momento (Ziriguiboom, 2007). The innovative Ziriguiboom label became synonymous with the modern sound of Brazil of the 2000’s.
Notable music supervision and compilation projects include Oscar™ nominated documentary How To Survive a Plague (dir. David France, Sundance Selects, 2012), Next Stop Wonderland (dir. Brad Anderson, Miramax, 1998), Novabossa (Verve Records), Capiríssima: Batucada Eletrônica (Caipirinha), The Best Of Os Mutantes: Everything is Possible with David Byrne (Luaka Bop), Chico Science & Nação Zumbí CSNZ Remixes (Sony Music Brasil), The Now Sound Of Brazil, SambaSoul 70, Brasil2Mil: The Soul Of Bass-O-Nova (Ziriguiboom) and more. Branded curatorial music projects and compilations include clients: Clinton Foundation, Brazil Foundation, Sagatiba, Sambazon, Leblon, Smoking, Natura, Espasso, UMA, Max Mara, Swarovski, Estar and Arezzo.
In 2009 Dranoff and director Guto Barra launched the award-winning independent feature documentary Beyond Ipanema: Brazilian Waves in Global Music focused on the international influence of Brazilian music from Carmen Miranda to today. Beyond Ipanema premiered at MoMA’s Premiere Brazil Film Festival, being screened in over 50 international festivals including SXSW, HotDocs, Chicago Film Festival and Rio Film Festival, receiving critical praise. In 2012, Dranoff and Barra partnered with Brazilian arts cable TV channel Canal Brasil (GloboSat) to produce a two seasons or programs based on the concept.
From 2010 through 2016, Dranoff produces and hosts 65 episodes of Sonoridade, a monthly online music program streamed on Clocktower Radio. In 2011, Dranoff joined the curatorial team of New York’s Brasil Summerfest, transforming the festival into Brazil’s most important music series internationally. Live event curatorial work includes: Lisbon’s Expo ’98 Red Hot + Lisbon Live, Red Hot + Rio Live at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2008) and MoMA’s Sculpture Garden Brazilian Summer (2010, 2011). From 2012 to 2016 Dranoff joins Empire Entertainment, the premier corporate event production company as director for Brazil & Region. With Empire Dranoff works in the production in major projects during Rio’s 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games for brands such as Coca-Cola, Sony, Panasonic and Bridgestone, as well as the Be Brasil event in NY for Brazilian export office APEX.
As a DJ and Music Selector, Dranoff has performed in prestigious festivals and events such as NY Fashion Week, Central Park Summerstage, Lincoln Center’s Out-Of-Doors, Sydney Festival, Austin’s SXSW, Rio’s Jazz & Bossa Festival as well as clubs in New York, São Paulo, Beijing, Tokyo, Wellington and more. In 2017 he was invited to start a monthly online radio program for Spain’s influential Radio Gladys Palmera called Brazilab focused on the modern sounds of Brazil. He is also part of music production team Sambismo with award winning composer and producer Zé Luis Oliveira.
In 2017 and 2018 Dranoff was invited to be part of the prestigious Abu Dhabi Culture Summit event attended by 400 international thought leaders and cultural producers. He currently continues to consult for artists, brands and events, always aiming to create and produce music, cultural projects and properties with a broad global appeal.
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).