Bio:
Winner of the award to the best Maracas Player of the Festival De La Música Llanera (Music from the Plains Festival) “El Silbón De Oro”. Portuguesa – Venezuela.
Winner of the International Festival of Villavicencio – Colombia.
Classical guitarist graduated from the Vicente Emilio Sojo conservatory, Barquisimeto – Venezuela, under the direction of professor Valmore Nieves.
Winner of the Latin Grammy – Certificate of participation in the album “Tesoros De La Música Venezolana” (Treasures of Venezuelan Music) by Ilan Chester. Guest musician on the Latin Grammy nominated recording “Textures From The North Of South” with the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra. Guest musician in the Grammy Awards nominated recording “PA’ FUERA” of C4 Trio.
He premiered in Venezuela the concert for Venezuelan maracas and Orchestra, PATARUCO by composer Ricardo Lorenz, with the Simón Bolívar Symphony conducted by Christian Vásquez. Later directed by Alfredo Rugeles with the Simón Bolívar Symphony and Enluis Montes Olivar with the Lara State Youth Orchestra. Also performed alongside the Tatuí Symphony – Brazil.
He premiered at the Wharton Center at Michigan State University, the new version of PATARUCO, with the Wind Symphony of Michigan State University directed by Dr. Kevin Sedatole. Adaptation and transcription by Dr. Travis Higa.
Author of the book and first method of Venezuelan maracas “5 movements are the key”, musicological work that he exhibited next to a maracas workshop at the UN Palace of the United Nations in Geneva – Switzerland. This unique method has been presented together with workshops of Venezuelan maracas in the music conservatories of Tatuí – Brazil, Conservatory of Music in Tomar – Portugal, Castelo de Paiva Academy of Music Oporto – Portugal, ESMUC Higher School of Music of Catalunya Barcelona – Spain, Benisanó School of Music Valencia – Spain, National Conservatory of Lima – Peru, Berklee College of Music Boston, Scottdalle Community College of Phoenix – Arizona, Kalos Music and Art School Miami, Michigan State University, GuildHall School of Music and Drama London – England, Clermont Ferrand Conservatory – France, Venezuelan Creole Music Stage in Mirecourt – France, Théâtre De France Saint Christophe D’Allier.
Selected among 2500 musicians in the world, as the only Latin American to participate in the OneBeat 2013 program, organized by the US State Department, touring concerts and workshops throughout the east coast of Florida from New Smyrna Beach to New York.
Tours made with multiple musical projects in Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, France, Spain, Portugal, England, Turkey, Stockholm, Switzerland, Brussels, New York, Boston, Michigan, Philadelphia and Washington.
“INSTINTO” music production. Member of the Urban Acoustic Movement, Rock and MAU, Arcano, Kapicúa, Los Sinvergüenzas, Joropo Jam and Venezuelan Roots. Music producer, executive producer, recording engineer and editor of “Tipico Ma Non Troppo” Venezuelan music album by oboist Fernando Álvarez.
Professor of the Maracas Chair of the Simón Bolívar Conservatory of Music Caracas – Venezuela 2014 – 2016.
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).