The Musicians

Quito Pedrosa

Quito Pedrosa was born in Rio de Janeiro, where he presently lives. Composer, arranger, guitarist and saxophonist, Pedrosa lived and studied in Brasilia, Madrid, Lima, and Paris. With five albums recorded, Quito Pedrosa has performed in the most well-known spaces of the instrumental music circuit of Rio. In 2002, he performed at the Aarhus Festival in Denmark with his quartet and in 2004, in the Pradillo Theatre in Madrid and in several other cities of Spain. In 2013 he performed with his duo in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

In addition to his instrumental work, he has composed soundtracks for theater and cinema.

Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ

Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ dedicates her life to creating music by blending the unique sounds of Vietnamese instruments with varieties of music genres, and fusing deeply rooted Vietnamese musical traditions with fresh new structures and compositions. Since settling in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001, Vân-Ánh has been focusing on collaborating with musicians across different styles, cultures and genres to create new works, bringing Vietnamese traditional music to a wider audience and preserving her cultural legacy through teaching. Her music reimagines traditional music to contemporary forms, bridging the previous with the current while bringing Vietnamese art music to the next generation.

Her first LP, Twelve Months, Four Seasons (2002) explores cycles of seasons and nature, motifs that are deeply rooted within Vân-Ánh’s heritage. In her next studio release, She’s Not She (2009) with award-winning composer Bảo Đỗ, she uses folk music as the medium to explore critical turning points, using its sonic expression to portray the pivots that shifts our nature and foci. Vân-Ánh’s Three-Mountain Pass, her third studio album, (2013) was selected as an NPR Top 10 World Music CD. Three-Mountain Pass brings voices of Vietnamese women pioneers and celebrates their courage that allowed future women to have the freedom to speak, to examine and to expand the creation of Vietnamese art music. Vân-Ánh has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, Southwest Chamber Music, Oakland Symphony, Monterey Symphony, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and collaborated with jazz, rap, and global music artists. Additionally, she has co-composed and arranged for the Oscar® nominated and Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner for Best Documentary, Daughter from Danang (2002), the Emmy® Awards winning film and soundtrack for Bolinao 52 (2008), A Village Called Versailles (2009), and Vietnam War (2019).

In addition to touring internationally, Vân-Ánh has presented her music at Carnegie Hall, Zellerbach Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, the Olympic Games 2012 Music Festival, and the White House under President Obama.

Recently, Vân-Ánh has received $150,000 commission award from Hewlett Foundation to compose new music for her multi-media production Mekong: LIFE. She also has received other grant awards including Creative Work Fund, California Arts Council, NEA, the Kennedy Center for The Arts, MAP Fund, Silicon Valley Creates, City of San Jose, San Francisco Arts Commissions, and San Jose Jazz.

In addition to the zither (đàn Tranh) Vân-Ánh also performs as soloist on the monochord (đàn Bầu), the bamboo xylophone (đàn T’rung), traditional drums (trống) and many other traditional instruments.

Vân-Ánh is also the artistic director of her Blood Moon Orchestra, a genre-bending musical collective that defies the bounds of Vietnamese traditional music, hip-hop/rap, and breakdance.

For more information, please visit: www.vananhvo.com

Yana Nikol

Expanding upon her extensive classical training, Bulgarian flutist, arranger and composer Yana Nikol passionately embraces jazz as well as the diverse folk music styles of different cultures. As a flutist Yana is an active freelance musician in the Washington D.C. area sharing her musical prowess as a participant in various projects and ensembles that incorporate a vast array of musical genres. Venues
she has performed at include AMP by Strathmore, Blues Alley Jazz Club, Atlas Performing Arts Center, Havre de Grace Opera House and George Mason Center for the Arts.

Yana Nikol is the creator and artistic director of Project Locrea—a global fusion ensemble, dedicated to creating and performing original compositions and contemporary arrangements inspired by the folk music of different countries. Combining sound and instrumentation of world folk traditions with classical, jazz and contemporary music conventions, the project’s focus is to bring a better understanding and deeper connection between cultures in current days, as well as to shine more light on freedom of artistic expression. Project Locrea released their first album in 2022 which led them to winning two WAMMIE Awards (Washington Area Music Awards) for Best World Music Artist and Best World Music Song (“Abet Abet” featuring Munit Mesfin) in 2022. In 2023 Project Locrea hosted the music, food and culture festival “Humans Beyond Borders”. To learn more, visit projectlocrea.com

Jonathan Crayford

Acclaimed as a highly original compositional talent, pianist Jonathan Crayford has been responsible for many film soundtracks, albums, and bands. Jonathan has worked with a wide range of musicians including Kurt Rosenwinkel, David Binney, Mambo Macoco and Groove Collective, David Murray, Tony Allen, Questlove, and Macy Gray, in Cuba—with Bobby Carcasses and in Brazil with Alda Rezende, Caito Mercones, Kristoff Silva, and José Miguel Wisnik.

His work spans many different genres of jazz, funk, and classical disciplines, as well as Latin jazz in regional styles, including, but not limited to Cuban, Brazilian and Spanish dialects. He is considered one of New Zealand’s foremost pianists who is certainly not afraid to venture into different genres.

A highly respected and exciting pianist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and film composer who’s scores and albums throughout the years have received many nominations and awards including Best Original Score, Best Jazz Album, Best Original Theatre Score.

Peni Candra Rini

Peni Candra Rini composes and performs traditional, neotraditional, and experimental music from Java. Faculty at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts, she has received awards and support from the Aga Khan Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council (NYC), the Asia Society (NYC), the US State Department, the Fulbright Program (Washington, DC), the Indonesian government, and many other programs. She has composed and performed with renowned musicians and ensembles around the world, from traditional performances in small Javanese villages, to performing with the Kronos Quartet at Carnegie Hall, to touring the world as part of Robert Wilson’s I La Galigo project.

Vero Perez

Vero Perez is a Bolivian singer, born in La Paz. She started her career at a very young age and by now she is one of the most known singers in Bolivia.

Her musical background is really diverse, she started singing pop, then rock, then jazz with her band Efecto Mandarina, she also performed electronic music with several DJs with whom she had the opportunity to open shows for David Guetta and Armin Van Buuren.

Efecto Mandarina has recorded five albums. They have toured around Latin America and also the United States. Their last album was recorded in New York with Andrew Gouché as producer.

Perez also had a duet with Jorge Villanueva with whom she recorded two albums, one is a bossa nova album and the other is chanson française music. They have toured around Europe and the United States.

Perez also acompanied several Bolivian bands such as WARA and Llegas, among others.

Perez speaks fluent Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese, which helps her to perform in different languages and be versatile in different genres.

Perez recorded her first solo album in 2020, Cadaver Exquisito, and she is now preparing her second solo album. This song “La Madre” is one of the songs that will be a part of this second album entitled Monstro.

José André Montaño

When child prodigy José André Montaño visited Wichita in 2017 to perform at the José André Montaño Family Concert, he made a stop at KSN-TV to talk about his immense talent. The young jazz pianist and composer who is blind and from Cochabamba, Bolivia, was asked how he came to play jazz, and he delightedly answered, “I like jazz because it permits me to improvise and to be free in the music, because I like to be free in music and I like to transmit to all the people feelings, my feelings. I like to transmit all that.”

Once the Kennedy Center learned of Montaño, they sponsored his and his family’s immigration to his new home of Washington D.C. A 2019 recipient of the VSA International Young Soloist Award for young musicians with disabilities, Montaño has performed in Italy, Canada, Malaysia, Finland, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and Colombia. Some of his notable performances include invitations to organizations such as the World Bank, Washington Performing Arts, Envision, the Library of Congress, and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Huang Ruo

Composer Huang Ruo has been lauded by The New York Times for having “a distinctive style.” His vibrant and inventive musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde, experimental, noise, natural and processed sound, rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls “Dimensionalism.” Huang Ruo’s diverse compositional works span from orchestra, chamber music, opera, theater, and dance, to cross-genre, sound installation, architectural installation, multimedia, experimental improvisation, folk rock, and film. His music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Royal Danish Opera, Asko/Schoenberg, Ensemble Modern, and London Sinfonietta. He has written nine operas including M. Butterfly, Book of Mountains and Seas, Angel Island, and An American Soldier, which was named one of the best classical music events in 2018 by The New York Times. He served as the first composer-in-residence for Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Huang Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China in 1976—the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s when China was opening its gate to the Western world, his education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, and Lutoslawski, to include the Beatles, rock and roll, heavy metal, and jazz. Huang Ruo is a composition faculty at the Mannes School of Music. Huang Ruo’s music is published by EAM/SCHOTT. (www.huangruo.com)

Moipei

Mary, Maggy, and Marta Moipei are triplets from Nairobi, Kenya, and currently reside in the U.S.

Most recently seen as featured performers with the Indianapolis Symphony in their AES Indiana Yuletide Celebration for 28 performances. They have recently been seen in NY as guest performers at Birdland Jazz Club.

Their musical journey began in Kenya Music Festival competitions with their sister Serafina. They were awarded 1st place honors for four consecutive years.

Their success has enabled them to showcase their talents to national and international audiences, taking part in various cultural festivals and conventions in Tanzania, Uganda, Canada, Venezuela, China, and the United States of America.

After a successful tour of South Korea, representing their country during the Young People’s Festival (YoPeFe), the sisters, at the age of 12, were appointed Kenya’s first ever UNICEF Child Ambassadors. Through their musical talents they championed girl empowerment, education, and alternative rites of passage.

Their notability grew in the Kenyan musical scene, and they were appointed as the Kenyan Musical Ambassadors to attend the Second African Cultural Festival in Caracas, Venezuela. They performed in various historic theatres and opera houses including the Teatro Municipal de Caracas to sold out audiences.

They were awarded the Head of State Commendation (HSC), by the President of Kenya, His Excellency Mwai Kibaki, in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the Music Industry and the Nation.

Their album “In the Land of the Lion,” won the 2011 Best of Africa category, at the prestigious South Africa Broadcasting Corporation Awards (SABC) held in Durban, South Africa. The sisters have performed sold-out concerts, presenting an eclectic mix of their own arrangements of Broadway tunes, jazz hits, sacred pieces, and Kenyan folk songs.

In 2017, they were featured in their first professional opera, Speed Dating Tonight with the Alamo City Opera company. The composer Michael Ching wrote an original piece for the singers titled “If not now when?”

Additional highlights include, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” to thousands of NBA fans at a Spurs playoff game; presenting a program for the President of Kenya in the iconic Rainbow Room at the Rockefeller Center; and performing with the San Antonio Symphony at their Holiday Pops concert singing an arrangement of “Let it Snow,” specially commissioned for the trio.

MOIPEI opened Amarillo Opera’s 2019 “Black History Month” concert series receiving rave reviews for their performance. The trio performed a highly successful one-month tour of British Columbia, Canada.

Moipei made their New York City debut at the Mabel Mercer Gala at Jazz at Lincoln Center Rose Hall in October 2021. The following week they made their debut at the internationally renowned Birdland Theater. A tour in the summer of 2022 to Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri, then a return engagement at Birdland Theater. The Mabel Mercer Foundation presented them with the prestigious Julie Wilson Award.

Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Performance Degree from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. Independent study started with their dad Nicholas and later included Met Opera stars Mary Jane Johnson, Matthew Polenzani and Faith Esham.

Djuena Tikuna

Born in Umariaçu in the Alto Rio Solimões region, vocalist, activist, and songwriter Djuena Tikuna belongs to the Tikuna people, Brazil’s largest Indigenous Amazonian ethnic group. Having learned her art form from her mother, who learned from her grandmother, who, in turn, learned from her ancestors, Djuena identifies as a “singer of the Indigenous movement.” Her lyrics are full of activist spirit and speak of matters dear to her community, such as the environment and the demarcation of their lands. More importantly, she sings in the Tikuna language, which, for her, is a political choice.

Djuena’s interpretation of the Brazilian National Anthem was featured at the Indigenous World Games in 2015 and at the opening of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. In 2017, she launched her first album Tchautchiüãne (My Community) and performed it at the Amazon Theater in Manaus, making her the first Indigenous singer to perform there in over 120 years. In 2019 she toured Europe, and released her new project, Wiyaegü (Fished People) featuring a CD, book, and documentary. In 2021, Djuena was awarded the Equator Prize Award for her work in fighting the climate crisis by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). She participated in New York Climate Week 2023 and hosted performances in Times Square as part of Banco do Brasil’s All Amazônia campaign and Pororoca, a musical show with great Brazilian artists in defense of the Amazon and Indigenous peoples, in Central Park. Her song “The Forest Heals”' was recently featured as part of BBC Earth’s #OurPlanetEarth initiative.

In response to the Yellow Ipê, Djuena shares a vocal improvisation in her Native language.