Celso Machado, 2008 World Solo Artist of the Year, CDN Folk Music Awards

Celso Machado, photo by Alex Waterhouse-Hayward
Celso Machado in concert

Virtuoso Brazilian guitarist, percussionist, and composer, Celso Machado, recogized for Artistic excellence:

WORLD MUSIC AWARDS: 2008 Canadian Folk Music Award for World Solo artist of the year and A Radio-Canada Galaxie Award

WORLD MUSIC NOMINATIONS: Four JUNO Award nominations, A Western Canadian Music Award, and Pacific Music Industry Award

PRAISE for CELSO:

Celso Machado took rhythm so far it eventually moved off the guitar altogether. He started out by doing mouth percussion (while he was playing everyone was looking all around for the invisible percussionist with the soft shaker) and ended up doing a kind of Roland Kirk virtuoso performance, simultaneously playing two different tropical birds and a thunderstorm.
To do all these things at once demands amazing skills—skills that combine elements that in the U.S. are rarely found in the same band, let alone the same musician."...Tim Brooks, author of Guitar: An American Life, Review of New York Guitar Festivals Brazilian Guitar Marathon, www.newyorkguitarfestival.org

"Inventive and unbuttoned"… Alan Kozinn, The New York Times

"Celso Machado is a samba school in himself". Caroline Kutter, Les Cahiers de la Guitare, Paris, France (translated)

"A one man compendium of Brazilian diversity who doubles as a guitarist and percussionist par excellence. Reminiscent of Bobby McFerrin, the multi-talented Machado finds an orchestra-full of ways to use his voice and makes percussion instruments of his entire body: cheeks, mouth, chest, hands and legs - not to mention the various parts of the microphone stand. Yet Machado also showed serious chops as a guitar player with an intricate, high speed solo in which he constantly altered the instruments tuning in mid-flight" ... Lawrence B. Johnson in a special to The Detroit News

"Celso Machado is a wonderful example of the musical riches currently flowing into Canada from many parts of the world. He has lived on our west coast since 1990 and since then has become a most appealing voice in the national conversation.
...he does his utmost to bring the warmth and richness of his native land to our rapidly thawing cultural tundra.
Celso alone is a force of nature ...Up close, Celso Machado is probably the most musical person I know. He performs, composes, publishes, records, teaches, and makes music out of literally everything he touches. In his magical hands bottles of water, rocks he finds on the beach, his own body and, of course, almost any musical instrument I could name - plus some I couldn't sing beautiful songs. Indeed, a couple of haunting musical effects on this CD emerged from pieces of junk Celso found lying around the recording studio. You'll also hear echoes of Celso's serious study of European Classical music, Italian folk music and several African musical traditions mixed into the whole bursting sonic universe he absorbed growing up in Brazil. For me, Celso Machado is the truest of musical Renaissance men (except that he's more interested in the music of the later Baroque period) and the ultimate one-man band." Malcolm Gould, producer of Jogo da Vida and the program OnStage at Glenn Gould Theatre, CBC Records

ORIGINAL MUSIC FOR FILM AWARDS: Leo Award for Best Score for Documentary for In The Company of Fear and a Leo Award nomination for A Place Called Chiapas which Celso co-composed with Salvador Ferreras and Joseph Pepe Danza.

article posted by:Celso Machado, Machado, Celso

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