Bio:
Rotem Sivan’s guitar skills are heralded across the globe. The New York Times has praised him as “more than a very good young guitar player.” Downbeat Magazine has called him “a remarkable talent.” And universally beloved music platform, Treble FM, has described him as a “bonafide guitar god with rugged Israeli sex appeal and skills that make us swoon.”
Rotem completed his studies in both classical composition and performance with honors in Tel Aviv and NYC. Rotem tours with his band most of the year playing in world- renowned festivals and clubs. He has performed in countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Slovenia, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Israel, UK, Canada and India among others, and has given workshops around the world in top universities and schools.
He has performed at many clubs and festivals around the world such as Polanco Festival, Chutzpah Festival, Marseille Festival, Nice Festival, Exposure Festival, Montreux Festival, Utopia Music Festival, Bern Festival, Ottawa Festival and Sonora Jazz Festival to name a few.
Rotem has developed a strong online presence with over 32k followers on Instagram alone. His last album, Antidote, charted on Billboard jazz at #16 and on iTunes as #1 on the jazz charts and top 100 album on all iTunes music. Upon graduation Rotem moved to NYC to pursue his passion for music. While making his first steps in the local scene he was also studying at The New School for Jazz Contemporary Music.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
“The gifted guitarist combines energy, ideas and undeniable chops..A remarkable talent and a welcome new voice on the scene.”
- DownBeat
"He lets you hear the innate sound of his instrument, using classic jazz-guitar tone with dynamics and a searching quality to his improvising.. He attains a kind of private language.. It’s the kind of thing that makes you listen harder."
- New York Times, Ben Ratliff
Rotem Sivan is, with no doubt, the next guitarist of our times. He is a leader and a listener.”
- Peter Bernstein
“I am confident in Sivan’s unique abilities to transform the jazz guitar world.”
- Ari Hoenig
“His style and sound bring a fresh flair and a remarkable sophistication to jazz, which transcends audiences”
- Jazz Times Magazine
“Israeli guitarist Rotem Sivan has been taking the NYC club scene by storm”
- Jazz Inside Magazine
“Not only is Rotem Sivan a master of jazz guitar, he is a true artist”
- Just Jazz Guitar
"Rotem Sivan has carved a place for himself in the New York jazz scene through his daring improvisation, astute band leading and technical ability but above all his lyricism and musicality.
“Antidote” is a smartly crafted combination of all these qualities in a beautiful package. The album never gets boring as the trio keeps moving throughout a wide variety of moods and soundscapes with musicality always being the prevalent force. Rotem has been one of the guitar players to watch for sometime now. This album establishes him as a force on the scene." / Antonio Sanchez
"Rotem Sivan is one of the most creative and adventurous guitarists on the scene today. He has a great imagination and the technical abilities to communicate what is inside that imagination. More importantly, he has the courage and confidence to follow his musical ideas and impulses through to create something that is all his own." / Peter Bernstein
"When a statement is achieved with such precision, what's captured attains an importance that shall last. Antidote is a special recording, and it shall fulfill many guitar aficionados without question". / Pat Martino
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).