Benji Kaplan is an Award winning guitarist, composer, arranger, multi-lingual vocalist and educator with over 5 albums to date as a bandleader. He has performed in venues alongside many world renowned artists such as Junior Mance, Bernard Purdie, Earth Wind & Fire, Seu Jorge and Kassin, among many others and has performed in Venues such as Penn State University, Brasil Summerfest, Drom, Dizzy’s Club, and Espaço Espelho D’agua (Portugal). In 2019 he performed a multi-national tour of Europe with his duo Benji & Rita including Portugal, Spain, England and Germany.
The son of a native Cuban percussionist father and visual-artist mother, Benji Kaplan has followed his arts-filled upbringing with a multi-faceted colorful musical palette that includes his formative years playing in Jazz Trios, guitar/vocal duos and BigBands in and around NYC from 2003 - 2009. Heavily influenced by his multiple excursions from the North to the South of Brazil as a teenager and continually in to his adult life, Benji brings with him a unique look at Jazz and classical music informed by his vast musical experiences performing, writing, studying and playing with master Brazilian composers/performers since the age of 18, and has been quoted by Guinga (Most Recognized Composer from Brazil Post Jobim) as stating: “I think he is the greatest composer of Brazilian Music to come from the United States… He is a genius.”
Although his compositions are deeply informed harmonically, melodically and linguistically by Brazilian popular music, it’s vast stories, folklore and rhythms, he is also heavily influenced by music from the Middle East, Argentina, Africa and Cuba. Ingeniously spiced with the full gamut of his rich musical understanding, he beautifully expresses his unique vision with ensembles ranging from string quartets to wind ensembles of varying shapes and sizes. His 4th album – Chorando Sete Chores – features 13 pieces for acoustic guitar and wind quintet. His previous album Uai Sô vividly demonstrates his enormous scope, combining strings, brass, voice and woodwinds in various combinations ranging from seven to twelve instruments. Benji released his 5th album entitled Benji & Rita, this time in duo partnership with his wife Rita Figueiredo in Early 2019. Together they explored the intimacy of voice and guitar, blending intricate harmonies with stories of Rita's homeland, Brazil in all of it's beauty, complexity, simplicity and irony. Benji releases his 6th Album as a bandleader (Out on Wise Cat Records, April 22’) with a project entitled “Something Here Inside” an intimate, delicate journey dedicated to Tin Pan Alley, featuring 8 tracks of truly inspired lush solo guitar arrangements of Jazz Standards by Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Rodgers & Hart and Lerner & Loewe.
Kaplan has been featured in Billboard, JazzTimes and Downbeat magazine among many other notable music publications. His music videos "A Moura do Maracaxá", "A Gente se Manifesta" and "Fuga de Alcatraz" have been featured in more than 30 Film festivals around the world and won multiple awards including Nawada international Film Fest, CinemaFest, NYC Indie Film awards and this past year, jwon the Roshani International Film Festival 2021 in India.
"Expect Danny Elfman to flip out when he hears him”
Mark S. Tucker - (Veritas Vampirus)
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Hugo Arán (1980, Barcelona), a self-taught musician and lyricist, already in his first stage feels attracted to the guitar and Brazilian music, which will be noticed later in many of his compositions.
In 2004, he travels to Brazil where he knows and deepens with the rhythms and harmonies of the country. This period helps him to start writing and composing his first songs, covering and taking as a pattern great references such as Chico Buarque, Márcio Faraco and Antonio Carlos Jobim, among others.
In 2007 he moved to Granada and formed the duo Tato Azevedo with Pablo Acevedo. They participated in various songwriter competitions and are awarded with a multitude of prizes that allow them to record their first album Sordo (2008).
- 1st Prize Andalusian Songwriting Contest IAJ (Jaén 2008)
- 3rd Prize Abril para vivir (Granada 2008)
- 3rd Prize Certamen de Cantautores de Ceutí (Murcia 2008)
- 3rd Prize Certamen de Cantautores de Burgos (2008)
- Award for Best Music Elche (2008)
- First prize national certamen of Elche (2010)
In 2011, Hugo Arán began his solo project putting together a repertoire that mixes styles such as bossa nova, baiâo, zamba or jazz.
In 2014, he presents Anuario (Porcausadela), an album of original songs with the production of Aure Ortega and Carlos Narea and the collaboration of musicians from Brazil, Argentina and Italy.
In 2017 he returned to Barcelona, his hometown, and presented his second album Memoria Muscular (Porcausadela), the result of his creative activity in the city. An album that includes eleven songs of his authorship and that has the collaboration of El Kanka, Márcio Faraco and Ana Rossi along with a small tribute from one of his greatest references: Gilberto Gil.
In 2020 he begins the recording of Extinciones y sus causas a third self-edited work, in which his maturity as a composer, producer and arranger is evidenced. 15 songs of his authorship and a collaboration with his teacher Márcio Faraco, who put lyrics to “Um Jacaranda”.
Hugo Arán walks through genres such as swing with his "Canto Leggero" and the Sicilian singer Margherita Abita or the profound "Lunas de fogueo" with the voice of the Neapolitan singer Alessio Arena.
The author gives us a handhold so as not to get lost in his depths and recreates an atmosphere of listening, where both the visceral and the sophisticated coexist perfectly.
Guilherme Andreas is a classical flutist, educator, singer, music director-arranger and Bubble tea lover. One of his first musical memories was showing up at choir rehearsals conducted by his father, where he learned the soprano and alto parts on his own, and according to his mother, sang louder than everyone else.
At age 22, he won the principal flute position with the Brazilian Marines Wind Symphony in Rio de Janeiro – his first professional music job, where he performed throughout South America. After surviving the unending and, at times, tortuous shouting of his Marine Drill Sergeant, Guilherme gained the confidence to face anything that comes with being a professional musician.
Andreas received 1st Prize in multiple competitions as both soloist and chamber musician. One competition led him to receive a scholarship to attend James Madison University in Virginia. During his graduate studies, he performed the Reinecke Flute Concerto with the University's Orchestra.
Andreas continued his graduate studies at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore, Maryland. A highpoint of his time at Peabody was his performance of the Nielsen Flute Concerto with the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.
Andreas has been an active performer throughout the U-S, and is currently based in New York, where he dedicates his time to teaching, and to discovering lesser-known composers whose music expresses extreme ranges of emotions and demands tremendous virtuosity. www.guilhermeanderas.com
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