Gabriel Santiago and Elden Kelly Duo KUVO 40th Celebration Concert Series

Gabriel Santiago was born in Brazil (1980), 2010 ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award Winner, Gabriel Santiago is a Composer/Arranger/ Acoustic and Electric Guitar Player. Called by JazzTimes Magazine “a young master at both the acoustic and electric guitars” and his compositions defined as “stunners”, Santiago recently completed his Doctoral Degree in Music Composition at the University of Texas at Austin, where he won the 2013 Outstanding Dissertation Award and the 2010 Eleanor A. Stribling Award for Excellence in Jazz Studies. His solid background also features studies with jazz masters Pat Metheny, Adam Rogers and Maria Schneider. Santiago has collaborated with a wide variety of artists includingEsperanza Spalding, Chris Potter, Stefon Harris, John Clayton, Terence Blanchard, Janek Gwizdala, Carmen Bradford, André Mehmari, Romero Lubambo, Odair Assad and Gilson Peranzzetta among others. He also has collaborated with Recording Engineer Master Rupert Neve several times, and was invited to be the first artist to record with Neve’s first ever line of microphones. Gabriel has been composing music for a wide variety of ensembles (ranging from Symphony Orchestra to Chamber ensembles, Big band to Jazz Combos), styles and medias including Film, TV, and Internet.

Elden Kelly Guitar virtuoso, improviser, composer and sound innovator Elden Kelly is one of the world’s best kept musical secrets. Audiences of all kinds are engaged by his expressiveness, technique and original thinking. As a solo and collaborative artist, his solutions to the questions offered in the format are engaging and unforgettable, and his contributions deep and far ranging. He also has a strong and haunting vocal style which he incorporates from time to time with great effect. Whether performing his original music or transforming a known theme, it always has the mark of the exceptional.
Recently Elden recorded with Howard Levy (harmonica player from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones). The world renowned luthier Ken Parker recently called him a “once in a generation player” and being so impressed he awarded him on permanent loan a 1980 nylon string archtop called “Frankie” which he will demonstrate at the show.