Bio:
David A. Castillo is a versatile performer, producer, and educator. His upbringing in the beautiful city of New Orleans heavily influences his eclectic style. Since childhood, David always gravitated toward music. His studies began with his Aunt Brenda, who introduced him to the trumpet and to Dreux Montegut, who led the newly formed St. Louis Cathedral Boychoir. As his voice developed, his Aunt B also encouraged him to audition for musicals and eventually was cast in his first, The King and I, as Prince Chululongkorn. While at Loyola University New Orleans, David pursued Pre-Dentistry, which continued until the college cast him in his first operatic role in The Elixir of Love. He completed his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music with a Master of Music in Vocal Arts. He graduated with honors from both institutions.
Singing has been a major part of his life, with his first public performance as an infant rumored to be “Baby Beluga” after stealing the microphone on the Stanford Basketball Court. Since then, David’s solo career brought him to Paris, The Vatican, Lincoln Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Severance Hall, Off-Broadway on 42nd Street, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and the Hollywood Bowl. He performed many world premieres for the LA Philharmonic (War of the Worlds with Sigourney Weaver), LA Master Chorale, The Industry, and the LA Opera and with several dance companies, such as American Contemporary Ballet, Luminario Ballet, Mojacar Flamenco, and in residency with choreographer Jay Carlon as co-producer and narrator at LA Dance Project.
Music also became his gateway to the screen competing on two episodes of America’s Got Talent. After the show he began a career in print and commercial. His years as an instrumentalist came back into play, when he was cast as the Trumpet Player in Camila Cabello’s short film/music video “Liar.” It was on set where he met Anthony Meindl and later began his studies in acting at his Los Angeles school. David sang on several soundtracks and movies, including Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker and Call of the Wild.
As a producer, David created the multi-sensory experience Seven Deadly Sins in New Orleans. With writer William Nedved and Project Runway winner Kentaro Kameyama, David produced and performed the role of Lee “Alexander” McQueen in their show The Passion of McQueen and performed the role of Perseus in their show Medusa with Deaf West Theatre at the Getty Villa. With Kentaro, David also produced and directed the fashion and art exhibition “for anna.”
In education and in the community, David discovers and understands arts’ purpose beyond entertainment with humans of all ages and backgrounds. He traveled all over LA County on tour with LA Opera Connects working with elementary school students, worked and performed with the Skid Row Community through the Street Symphony, and frequently builds programs with the Foothill Service Club for the Blind. He is on the voice faculties of Moorpark College and Pierce College.
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).