CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
David Castillo
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City/Place:
Los Angeles, California
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
New Orleans, Lousiana
Life
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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.
Clips (more may be added)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Wolfram Mathematics
This technological matrix originating in Bahia, Brazil and positioning creators around the world within reach of each other and the entire planet is able to do so because it is small-world (see Wolfram above). Bahia itself, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place on earth throughout all of human history, refuge for Lusitanian Sephardim fleeing the Inquisition, Indigenous both apart and subsumed into a sociocultural matrix comprised of these three peoples and more, is small-world. Human society, the billions of us, is small-world. Neural structures for human memory are small-world...
In small worlds great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"I'm truly thankful ... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)"
—Nduduzo Makhathini (JOHANNESBURG): piano, Blue Note recording artist
"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; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"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...)
"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
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Dear friends & colleagues,
Having arrived in Salvador 13 years earlier, I opened a record shop in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for Bahian musicians, many of them magisterial but unknown.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Bahians and other Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix (people who have passed are not removed), then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Recent access to this matrix and Bahia are from these places (a single marker can denote multiple accesses).
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Nduduzo Makhathini
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX