Gonzalo Rubalcaba is steps away from every artist encompassed by this matrix, and by logical extension, everybody on earth. Via the phenomenon connecting every one of the 7.7 billion of us to most every other within a chain of 6 or fewer steps.
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I CURATE!
- Curations by: The Matrix
Who I Am & Where I Live
- Name: Gonzalo Rubalcaba
- City: Coral Springs, Florida
- Country: United States
- Hometown: Havana, Cuba
My Life & Work
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Bio:
Pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba was already a young phenom with a budding career in his native Cuba when he was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie in 1985. Since, Piano & Keyboard Magazine selected him in 1999 as one of the great pianists of the 20th century, alongside figures such as Glenn Gould, Martha Argerich and Bill Evans; won two Grammys and two Latin Grammys, and established himself as a creative force in the jazz world.
He was born on May 27, 1963 in a musical family in Havana. His father, pianist, composer and bandleader Guillermo Rubalcaba, had also played in the orchestra of Enrique Jorrín, the creator of cha-cha-cha; his grandfather Jacobo Rubalcaba, was the composer of classic danzones, and his two brothers are also musicians. Gonzalo, a child prodigy who by the age of 6 was playing drums in his father’s orchestra, started his formal training two years later, with piano as his main instrument to, as he once recalled, “just to please my mother.” He graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts in Havana with a degree in composition and by his mid–teens he was working as both, drummer and pianist, in the hotels, concert halls and jazz clubs of Havana. Following graduation he stepped right into the life of the popular musician, touring Cuba, Europe, Africa and Asia with the fabled Orquesta Aragón and also as a sideman in jazz groups and, beginning in 1984, leading his own Afro-Cuban jazz rock fusion band, Grupo Proyecto.
The encounters with Gillespie and, in 1986, with Charlie Haden and then Blue Note Records president, Bruce Lundvall, set the stage to finally showcase Rubalcaba ́s talent before jazz audiences in the United States. These years are documented in a series of recordings in Havana and Frankfurt, Germany, including three superb recordings with his Cuban Quartet on the German label Messidor : Mi Gran Pasión (1987), Live in Havana (1989) and Giraldilla (1990). Rubalcaba moved to the Dominican Republic in 1991 and settled in Miami in 1996.
His international recording career, which includes titles such as Discovery – Live at Montreux, Images– Live at Mt. Fuji, The Blessing, Suite 4 y 20, Rapsodia, Diz and Imagine – Gonzalo Rubalcaba in the USA, has garnered him 16 nominations including both Grammys and Latin Grammys. He won Grammys for Nocturne (2001) and Land of the Sun (2004), two collections of Latin ballads and boleros recorded with bassist Charlie Haden; and Latin Grammys for Solo(2006) and Supernova (2002).
In 2010, Rubalcaba and businessman Gary Galimidi, founded 5Passion Records and since, the label has not only released Rubalcaba’s latest recordings such as Fe (2011), XXI Century (2012), Live Faith (2014), the Latin Grammy nominated Suite Caminos (2015), and Charlie (2016) but also albums by artists such as Yosvany Terry, John Daversa and Ignacio Berroa, Jose Armando Gola, Will Vinson, Seamus Blake and Volcan.
Reflecting his interest in music education, Rubalcaba joined the faculty of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music in 2015.
Contact Information
- Email: gggrbooking@gmail.com
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Management/Booking:
TEMA
The European Music Agency
Mr. Enrico Iubatti
Office: +39 0744 983431
Enrico Iubatti – mobile +39 347 5744516
Andrea Scaccia – mobile +39 339 2980936
Email address: theeuropeanmusicagency@gmail.com
For the United States and Canada:
Maria Matias
Email: Office@MariaMatiasMusic.com
Phone: 831.625.0344
Website: www.MariaMatiasMusic.com
My Media & Markets
- ▶ Buy My Music (downloads/CDs/DVDs): http://www.5passion.com/blog/2434-2/
- ▶ Twitter: grubalcaba
- ▶ Instagram: gonzalorubalcabaofficial
- ▶ Website: http://www.5passion.com
- ▶ YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3l7qxqb2OlMflZrVJrRq0g
- ▶ YouTube Music: http://music.youtube.com/channel/UCyb0dwvERrd0VvkA101oCJw
- ▶ Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/5pFwRNwK2PYbqduqfoXDmj
- ▶ Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/3Sy3gbqmSbLUs0zGYznSD1
- ▶ Spotify 3: http://open.spotify.com/album/67F4jQSzz2CvGNfYpZFems
- ▶ Spotify 4: http://open.spotify.com/album/5QhyHJOr8X4raajbuziObn
- ▶ Spotify 5: http://open.spotify.com/album/6w1eONC5VfD8c3wKi0SPzt
- ▶ Spotify 6: http://open.spotify.com/album/1jYocXlD8sLjUCAhdlv2bO
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Sir Simon Rattle has called the Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba… “the most gifted pianist on the planet” …
Dizzy Gillespie’s remarks (1985) on first hearing Gonzalo “…the greatest pianist I’ve heard in the last 10 years”…
Charlie Haden once remarked… “Gonzalo is the master of musical structures, he is a smart heart”…
Ben Ratliff, The New York Times “… Meticulous Jazzman of the World”
Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune “… Gonzalo Rubalcaba ranks among the most accomplished jazz pianists in the world today and perhaps stands at the top of that elite group, thanks to a colossal technique and an unfettered musical imagination”
Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune “… Rubalcaba’s pianism is something of a quasi-classical recital, Rubalcaba draws as much from his classic idioms as his jazz lexicon, eradicating barriers between the two, albeit in decidedly contemporary terms. Only a pianist with Rubalcaba’s footing in both classical and jazz orthodoxies could have pulled it off”