CURATION
-
from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
-
Name:
José Antonio Escobar
-
City/Place:
Barcelona
-
Country:
Spain
Life & Work
-
Bio:
José Antonio Escobar is one of the most distinguished and versatile classical guitar soloists of his generation. He is especially remarkable due to his perfect balance between his intense musical expression and his vast knowledge of the various musical styles and periods.
He was born in Santiago de Chile, where he graduated with Top Honors after studying at the Conservatory of Music-University of Chile. Immediately after graduating, he continued to perfect his studies at the Hochschule für Musik in Augsburg, Germany. Under the influence of his first master, the lutenist Ernesto Quezada, he became deeply interested in original ancient instruments from the guitar family. This motivated him to round out his studies by attending Early Music courses and master classes with renowned specialists such as Hopkinson Smith, Eduardo Egüez, and Juan Carlos Rivera.
While he is greatly interested in ancient music, he has always felt at home when interpreting 20th Century or contemporary music. This has led him to commission, premiere and record works by renowned composers as well as Chilean composers, in particular. He has also devoted some time to studying and interpreting music with popular and folk influences from Latin America. In this regard, he has worked in various projects both as a soloist and as part of Dúo Sudamericano, along with Javier Contreras, an outstanding Chilean composer and guitarist.
Throughout a period encompassing almost 10 years, he obtained more than fifteen prizes in the most prestigious International Guitar Competitions today, such as Francisco Tárrega (Spain), Alessandria (Italy), Alhambra (Spain), Guitar Foundation of America (USA), Julian Arcas (Spain), Karl Sheit (Austria), among many others.
As a soloist and chamber musician he has toured over 30 countries, covering almost all of Europe and the Americas, as well as some North African countries, the Near East, Asia and Oceania. He has also performed as a soloist with distinguished orchestras, namely Orquesta de Extremadura (Spain), Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino (Italy), St. Michel Strings (Finland), Hofer Symphoniker (Germany), and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile. He has also debuted in major concert halls such as the Brahms-Saal at the Vienna Musikverein, the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre in London, the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, Sala Cecilia Meireles in Rio de Janeiro, Teatro Monumental in Madrid, Teatro Teresa Carreño in Caracas, etc.
He has completed several recordings under the NAXOS and RTVE labels, receiving excellent reviews from specialized media. He has also worked on several independent recordings both as an artist and producer. He is currently living in Spain, and he is constantly invited to not only perform at recitals but also share his expertise by giving master classes and lectures at major music festivals, courses, seminars and workshops in prestigious universities around Europe and the Americas.
More
-
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
1st Prize at the HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS International Competition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1997.
1st Prize at the ALIRIO DÍAZ International Guitar Competition in Caracas, Venezuela, 1998.
1st Prize and Special Audience Prize at the prestigious FRANCISCO TÁRREGA International Guitar Competition in Benicàssim, Spain, 2000
1st Prize at the STOTSENBERG International Guitar Competition (currently Parkening International Guitar Competition) in Malibu, California, USA, 2001
1st Prize (2nd no awarded) at the JULIAN ARCAS International Guitar Competition in Almería, Spain, 2003
1st Prize at the NORBA CAESARINA International Guitar Competition, Cáceres, Spain, 2005.
2nd Prize – ALHAMBRA International Guitar Competition, Alcoy, Spain, 2002.
2nd Prize – FORUM GUITAR WIEN International Guitar Competition, Vienna, Austria, 2002.
2nd Prize – Concorso Internazionale di Chitarra Classica RUGGERO CHIESA, Camogli, Italy, 2004.
3th Prize – GFA International Guitar Competition, La Jolla, California, USA, 1997.
3th Prize – KARL SCHEIT International Guitar Competition, Vienna, Austria, 1998.
3th Prize – Concorso Internazionale de Chitarra Classica MICHELE PITTALUGA, Alessandria, Italy, 2003.
Clips (more may be added)
"In a small world great things are possible." Creators in the Matrix mathematically gravitate toward all other creators in the Matrix, steps away...
In this matrix it's not which pill you take, it's which pathways you take, pathways originating in the sprawling cultural matrix of Brazil: Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, European, Asian... Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, delineated by the Bay of All Saints, earthly center of gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings — and the sublimity they created — presided over by the ineffable Black Rome of Brazil: Salvador da Bahia.
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano Veloso, son of the Recôncavo, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Caetano Veloso
THE MATRIX MISSION: What do Jimmy Cliff, Jimmy Page, and Dionne Warwick all have in common? They've all lived in Bahia and Dionne is moving back (visitors include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spike Lee, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, David Byrne and Sting, among others). But so have lived and now live untold numbers of Bahian creators whose magisterial work has never had the major media means to reach beyond limited surroundings. In order that the creators of Bahia might have global reach, ALL creators must have global reach.
QED: 'mātriks / "source" / from "mater", Latin for "mother". We're real mothers for ya! (thank you Johnny "Guitar" Watson)
Susan Rogers
"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
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze: manager, Kamasi Washington
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad: Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd-Webber: UK's premier cellist; brother of Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals: World's premier klezmer violinist
Developed here in the Historic Center of Salvador da Bahia ↓ .
Bule Bule (Assis Valente)
"♫ The time has come for these bronzed people to show their value..."
Recommend somebody and you will appear on that person's page. Somebody recommends you and they will appear on your page.
Both pulled by the inexorable mathematical gravity of the small world phenomenon to within range of everybody inside.
And by logical extension, to within range of all humanity outside as well.
8 billion human beings tend to within six degrees of connection to each other.
In a small world great things are possible.
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).
I built the Matrix below (I'm below left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) 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. 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).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian. If you create too, join them in the Matrix.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.