CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Chris Acquavella
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City/Place:
Mainz
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Country:
Germany
Life & Work
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Bio:
Chris Acquavella is a classical mandolinist & educator from San Diego, California, who currently lives in Mainz, Germany. He graduated First Class Honors from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance in London, England. Chris studied under the instruction of Alison Stephens, as well as composition with Andrew Poppy. In 2004, Chris won the Wolfsan Foundation Music Award and was awarded the TCM Trust Silver Medal for String Studies in 2006. Chris Acquavella performs across Europe and America both in a solo and chamber music capacity. Aside from chamber music, he concertizes as a soloist & orchestral musician with various orchestras & ensembles throughout the world such as Duo Acquavella (DE), Dartington Festival Orchestra (UK), Detmold Landestheater (DE), Ensemble Lippe Barock (DE), GER Mandolin Orchestra (USA), Bach Collegium San Diego (USA), San Diego Opera (USA) and the San Diego Symphony (USA).
Recordings include: Letter from London, EP (2006), Duo LaRé: In Other Words (Water Village Records, 2010), and Praeludium (Water Village Records, 2011). Chris is currently a recording artist for America’s oldest and largest independent classical label, Centaur Records, Inc. Duo Acquavella with Bach Collegium San Diego; Gimo-Samling: 18th Century Sonatas and Triosonatas for Mandolin (CRC 3466) was released on Centaur Records in March 2016.
As the Artistic Director of the San Diego Classical Mandolin Camp, Chris Acquavella has created a program that explores the depth and breadth of the classical mandolin, from baroque to modern times, through 5 days of intensive classes, rehearsals, and concerts. He has performed & taught workshops at the Classical Mandolin Society of America Conventions, River of the West Camp and the David Grisman & Mike Marshall Mandolin Symposium, as well as across the globe on his various tours.
Aside from teaching and performing on the mandolin, Chris is a composer of new works for mandolin & mandolin ensembles. He studied composition at Trinity Laban Conservatory of Music and Dance, under the tuition of contemporary artist, Andrew Poppy. Up to date, Chris has ten compositions that are published by Joachim-Trekel-Musikverlag, Hamburg and Astute Music, Ltd. Some of his most popular compositions are Imardin for solo mandolin (T6457), 2014 for solo mandolin (T6629), Journey to Pazardzhik for baroque mandolino (T6568), Wishes for two mandolins (am514-28), and Yutuma for zupforchester (R9430). Chris Acquavella is co-author, along with Alison Stephens, of The Mandolin Companion (am514-25).
Chris performs on mandolins by Brian N. Dean of Labraid.
My Instruction
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Lessons/Workshops:
Chris Acquavella is a mandolin instructor at his music studio in Detmold, Germany. He also offers online mandolin lessons through Skype. Chris is an instructor/performer at the CMSA Conventions, Mike Marshall/David Grisman Mandolin Symposium and in the artistic director of the San Diego Classical Mandolin Camp. Chris also tours around the U.S.A. & Europe giving workshops on mandolin technique, historical repertoire & musical expression.
Chris is now accepting new students via Skype online! Whether you are a beginner or an advanced performer, Chris will be delighted to share in your music experience. Taking online lessons is the next best thing to having private lessons with Chris in Germany! PDFs of the material are emailed to students prior to each lesson or directly after the session. Skype lessons are $60 per hour, which must be paid prior to lesson. Online tuition is paid via PayPal prior to the first lesson each month. Once tuition is received Chris will connect via Skype and email you lesson materials. Please email Chris Acquavella today to schedule your Skype lessons.
Skype “mandolining” with Chris has far surpassed my expectations. Such vision….he spots all my bad habits from 2,689 miles away and helps me correct them. This is 21st century technology at its best!
- Eileen, Maryland
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Instruction:
http://chrisacquavella.com/lessons/
Clips (more may be added)
Uncoiling from an Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix...
EX TERRA BRASILIS
Millions of short-path connections uniting creators worldwide by means of the extraordinary mathematics of:
The Small World Phenomenon
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Take an artist... from Salvador, Havana, Brooklyn, Cape Town...
Writer, musician, filmmaker, painter, choreographer, architect, academic, fashion designer, chef...
Integrate that artist into a network of other artists around the world.
In the manner that most human beings are within some six degrees of most others, our artist will tend to within a small number of steps of all others in the network.
The creative universe becomes a creative village in which all have access to all.
Inspired in the sensorial immanence of Borges' transfinites-inspired Alephs.
The Aleph / O Aleph
O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space...
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.com
Linking to the Matrix from your media (to the Matrix in general / to your Matrix Page from your Instagram) plugs your people in.
https://linktr.ee
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; recorded "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): World's premier klezmer violinist
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
Conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Thus A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until Sodré was silenced, threatened with death and forced into exile...
And thus a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (seat of the Integrated Global Creative Economy* and where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
*Darius Mans holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, and lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador da Bahia.
Between 2000 and 2004 he served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola. In that capacity, Darius led a team which generated $150 million in annual lending to Mozambique, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment.
Darius was an economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he worked closely with the U.S. Treasury and the IMF to establish a framework to avoid debt repudiation and to restructure private commercial debt in Brazil and Chile.
He taught Economics at the University of Maryland and was a consultant to KPMG on infrastructure projects in Latin America.
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
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 founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.