Miguel Atwood-Ferguson
This Brazilian cultural matrix positions Miguel Atwood-Ferguson globally...
Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson
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City/Place:
Los Angeles, California
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Country:
United States
Life & Work
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Bio:
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson is a multi-instrumentalist, arranger, composer, music director, producer, DJ, and educator based in his hometown of Los Angeles, California.
The depth and range of Atwood-Ferguson’s work is vast, having contributed to over 500 recordings, and 2,500 live concerts. He has a rare gift and serious devotion and dedication to developing it; he effortlessly bridges diverse genres and generations of musical and cultural elements into cohesive and magical presentations. And it’s his ability to connect with music of all styles, forms and traditions that sets him apart. Miguel’s interests are many and he performs, tours and records with ensembles ranging from electronic, avant-garde, jazz, classical, hip-hop, and pop to name a few from countries all around the world. Many long years of practice and study prepared him for what is now a life of constant composing, conducting, performing, improvising, and producing.
Miguel’s formal violin lessons started at age 4, though he recalls experiencing music as early as in utero. “I experienced live music while my mom was pregnant with me when she went to weekly music nights with my dad at their friend’s house.” The child of two musical parents – his mother a special-education teacher, his father a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and accomplished recording artist – Miguel was raised in a creative environment, growing up in the famed artist district of Topanga Canyon. With so many influences to mention, both musical and other, Miguel thinks back fondly on what he listened to growing up, “Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, opera, country music, Motown, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, and The Beatles . . .” In addition he listens to and finds great inspiration from, “My friends and colleagues, as well as greats such as John Coltrane, J.S. Bach, Maurice Ravel, Duke Ellington, Gil Evans, Hermeto Pascoal, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Bernard Herrmann, Henri Dutilleux, Fritz Kreisler, L. Subramaniam, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Béla Bartók, Claude Debussy, Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, Charlie Parker, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Thelonious Monk, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Woody Shaw, Eric Dolphy, Larry Young, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, J Dilla, James Brown, Kenny Kirkland, Dave Holland, Brad Mehldau, Mulgrew Miller, Michael Jackson, James Jamerson, Madlib, MF Doom, etc . . .”
Currently working on various solo, duet, ensemble, and concept records where he is the lead artist, Miguel also makes time to write and perform arrangements for a wide array of artists and bands as well as leading his groups Quartetto Fantastico, The Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble and specialized orchestral configurations. It is his goal “to build toward having an orchestra that plays music from across the globe with international musicians of Peace and Love.” All of this was set up by a career as a session violist and budding symphonic composer that started in his days as a junior high-school student at Paul Revere Middle School when The Pacific Palisades Symphony performed his ‘Serenade in D Major’. (By the age of 17, Miguel had already been the feature of segments on KCET and the Disney Channel, highlighting his incredible talents. It was clear then, that with focus and determination, Miguel would reach great heights, and when he presented his final project as a high school senior at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, his first viola concerto ‘In Memoriam Of Love Lost’, his path was all the brighter). He would move on from Crossroads to the University of Southern California, where he graduated with a degree in Viola Performance, and a growing resumé.
As a violist, Miguel appeared with Big Boi (Outkast) at the 2004 Kid’s Choice Awards on Nickelodeon, with Rihanna on the Jay Leno Show and at the 2007 American Music Awards, with Christina Aguilera on her 2006 MTV special ‘Back to Basics’, and with John Legend and Kirk Franklin at the 2008 BET Gospel Celebration. He also played with Shakira, Wyclef Jean and Gnarls Barkley at the 2007 Grammy Awards, with Hall & Oates on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Extra, and The Megan Mullally Show, and with Pink at the 2008 American Music Awards. In 2009, Miguel was on the season finale of ‘America’s Got Talent’, backing up Susan Boyle. Miguel returned to CBS studios again to perform on ‘American Idol’ backing up Lana Del Rey and to Warner Bros. to perform with both Father John Misty and Mikal Cronin on The Conan O’Brien Show in 2014 and Robert Glasper in 2016. Miguel had the honor of playing violin on stage with Lady Gaga for her career breakthrough performance of The Sound of Music at the 87th Annual Oscar Awards in 2015. In 2017, Miguel had the honor of arranging for and performing with a string quartet on the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon for artists Anderson .Paak and Knxwledge supporting their duo group 'NxWorries.'
In orchestral settings, Miguel has joined the likes of John Williams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Zubin Mehta, Emanuel Ax, James Galway, Sarah Chang, Feist, Roy Hargrove, Francisco Aguabella, Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, Wayne Shorter, Ray Brown, Brad Mehldau, Guru (Gang Starr), Vince Mendoza, and Henry Mancini among many others. In 2013, through a NEA grant, Miguel was commissioned to write a concerto for Flute, Viola, and Jazz Orchestra which was premiered to great acclaim.
As a studio musician, he has recorded for Mary J. Blige, will.i.am, Dr. Dre, Flying Lotus, Anderson .Paak, Raphael Saadiq, Kobe Bryant, Seu Jorge, Heath Ledger, Lianne La Havas, John Cale, Swizz Beatz, Eddie Murphy, No I.D., Barry Manilow, Kimbra, David Foster, Joss Stone, Bilal, Michael Bublé, Marisa Monte, Common, Randy Jackson, and on Ray Charles’ Grammy winning album ‘Genius Loves Company’.
As a featured artist, Miguel has performed and/or recorded alongside Hubert Laws, Billy Higgins, Brian Blade, Kamasi Washington, Flying Lotus, Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner, Erykah Badu, The Roots, Chaka Khan, Robert Glasper, Alphonse Mouzon, Airto Moreira, Buster Williams, The Cinematic Orchestra, Harvey Mason, Saul Williams, Billy Childs, Henry Grimes, Patrice Rushen, Ndugu Chancler, Hiatus Kaiyote, Bennie Maupin, Ravi Coltrane, Eric Harland, and The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.
Miguel has had the honor of performing in the personal bands of Anderson .Paak, Flying Lotus, Austin Peralta, Kamasi Washington, Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner, Makaya McCraven, Jamael Dean, Dwight Trible, Mulatu Astatke, Arthur Verocai, Bebel Gilberto, Azar Lawrence, Wadada Leo Smith, Carlos Niño, Mia Doi Todd, Nate Morgan, Alex Cline, Vardan Ovsepian, Josh Nelson, and Chris Abani among many others.
Miguel has performed at top venues throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South America, Australia, and Europe. In addition, he’s been a featured performer on the internationally acclaimed BBC Radio 1 program ‘Worldwide’ in London hosted by Gilles Peterson and on Los Angeles-based stations KUSC 91.5 FM, KCRW 89.9 FM and KPFK 90.7 FM. Miguel has also been a part of 3 TED Conference events as a performer, composer and guest programmer.
One of Miguel’s most incredible gifts is the ability to record ‘orchestras’ of himself, and was coined “The One Man Orchestra” by will.i.am. As a 1 man orchestra, Miguel composes for violin, viola, cello, and sometimes basses, piano, keyboards and percussion, and plays all of the instruments. A major part of his livelihood has been doing just that for esteemed people such as Oprah Winfrey, who in 2011, chose to use ‘Own It’, a song Miguel made with will.i.am for the Black Eyed Peas album ‘The Beginning’, as the theme music for the main promo of her new TV Network ‘OWN’.
Another of Miguel’s great achievements was in 2009 when he composed and conducted the historic ‘Suite for Ma Dukes’ concert in Los Angeles leading over 60 musicians, whom he chose and contracted, in tribute to the transcendent modern hip-hop producer J Dilla. As composer and conductor that legendary February night, Miguel featured special guests Bilal, Posdnous (De La Soul), Talib Kweli, Karriem Riggins, Stephen ‘Thundercat’ Bruner, and more. The Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble has featured guest appearances by Sly Stone, Shuggie Otis, George Clinton, Seu Jorge, Kamasi Washington, Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Leon Ware, Flying Lotus, Chris ‘Daddy’ Dave, Moses Sumney, Marie Daulne (Zap Mama), J Rocc, Coco (Quadron), Georgia Anne Muldrow, Austin Peralta, James Gadson, Mayer Hawthorne, José James, Meshell Ndegeocello, Aloe Blacc, Pharoahe Monch, Daedelus, Sara Gazarek, Nai Palm (Hiatus Kaiyote), Deantoni Parks and Ndugu Chancler, among others.
In 2016, Miguel had the honor and great responsibility of orchestrating and conducting the entire Season 1 of the acclaimed 'Luke Cage' series by Marvel Comics. Miguel helped define the character of the music for the series by selecting the instruments that you hear on the soundtrack and by the unique way in which he wrote for them each episode. Miguel at times composed his own unique melodies around those of the credited composers in addition to helping conceive of the sound of the score itself by choosing to have the sound of muted brass throughout the soundtrack adding to the sinister qualities of some of the gangster characters of the show and by having the harp featured in the particular way Miguel chose to write for it.
Later in 2016, Miguel was reunited with Dr. Dre as he was called upon to orchestrate and conduct the score for Apple Music's 'Vital Signs' bio pic series starring Dr. Dre.
Miguel concluded 2016 with performing Suite For Ma Dukes at the London Jazz Festival to rave reviews. An organizer of the London Jazz Festival remarked that Miguel's performance was "One of the best performances in the history of the London Jazz Festival."
2017 saw Miguel continuing to score, write, record and perform towards his own projects like presenting Suite for Ma Dukes in Los Angeles, London, North Sea Jazz Festival, and New York's Lincoln Center all to great acclaim as well as producing the musical score for the recently released Puff Daddy's 'Can't Stop, Won't Stop' documentary of Bad Boy Records.
In 2017, modern icon, Questlove of the legendary band The Roots, reached to Miguel asking him to arrange and conduct a very special Orchestral concert for Amazon Music which featured the Roots, Chaka Khan, Robert Glasper, Erykah Badu, Black Thought, and Bilal. After the great success of that concert, Questlove employed Miguel once again in 2018 to arrange the bulk of the music for ‘4U: A Symphonic Celebration of Prince’ which is still currently touring globally to critical acclaim.
2018 and 2019 included Miguel leading his own groups to extremely receptive large crowds in New York, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Cape Town South Africa, and Geneva Switzerland.
Recently, Miguel had the honor of being a co-writer on the song ‘Make It Better’ featuring one of the biggest legends of recorded Music- the Great Smokey Robinson. The song is featured on the 2020 Grammy winning R&B album of the year ‘Ventura’ by Anderson. Paak. Additionally, Miguel arranged and recorded string orchestras of himself on two songs.
In 2021, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s debut record 'Les Jardins Mystiques' will be released on the Los Angeles indie label ‘Brainfeeder’.
Clips (more may be added)
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular imagination. Brazil is one of them; an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics — there’s no other place like it in the world. And while Rio de Janeiro, or its fame anyway, tends toward the sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia bends toward the atavistic…
It’s like a trick of the mind’s light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (and here; the Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet, and in the past it extended into what is now urban Salvador), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present:
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof.
That's where this Matrix begins:
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers all over the planet.
This Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from Brazil's sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix... expanding like the canopy of a rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, branches spreading to embrace the entire world...
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"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...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
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 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, 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've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) 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.
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 founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
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
Ex Terra Brasilis
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX