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.
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
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).