I am fascinated with the role of the voice in music, and so my experience has been always related to work with it in all fields. The work I do ranges from composing and arranging to producing a landmark recording; from creating compelling compositions to brainstorming new ways to perform vocal jazz; from choral and vocal concerts of highest quality to world-class lecturing and workshops; from sonic art creation to album production. Welcome to this digital corner to get to know more about how my music world is like.
New season is here!
The conducting season 2024-2025 has begun in great way: the rehearsals are going smoothly and all choirs are getting ready for their upcoming concerts, which you will see from now on in the agenda.
New music has been published!
I´m happy to announce that Edition Ferrimontana has augmented my available published choral catalog on their brand to 18 works, ranging from avantgarde (and now well-known) arrangements of Venezuelan popular music to wonderful, complex vocal explorations. You can take a look to the overview at the publishers website, and listen to demo renderings of some of them in my works page.
Across is now available on all streaming platforms!
Across, the latest Jazz venture as a composer, resulting from a composition commission awarded by the Dutch Improvisator's Organisation's 50th anniversary celebrations, is now available as a digital EP with only new jazz music composed for the concerts given in Haarlem and Rotterdam for that occasion. The album captured the virtuosity of the performers gathered for that project, and was recorded live at the LantarenVenster Great Hall on the 30th October 2022.
Five new tunes reflecting on melodic interventions, rhythmical intricacies and a conscious interplay between carefully composed material and improvisatorial efforts are here depicted by what we called the Miguel Ángel Santaella Jazz Ensemble.
Across, a Miguel Ángel Santaella production released by Donemus Records
An amazing sonic trip to a new kind of vocal jazz compositions and performing begins now with this album, a totally solo project where vocal sounds are used on every track not just for creating harmonies or singing melodies, but also to create innovative sound beds and effects, blurring boundaries of what has been done and will be done after this production. This is truly a work of love and craftsmanship. A secret kept hidden from the public until now for your listening pleasure. But be aware! this is not something you're totally familiar with, so don´t get me wrong. It is vocal jazz, but not the usual way. It is electronic music, but not as you've used to listen to. It is improvised and composed, but not as you might imagine.
The inspiration for the original tracks came mostly from my personal experiences, so you can listen to my expectations when I moved from Venezuela (Simón Díaz' Tonada de Luna Llena) to the Netherlands (Un Caraqueño en Rotterdam), the hype of walking thru the jazziest street of the city (Oude Binnenweg), the short but lasting peace felt when a Buddhist monk opened the door of the Gakwonsa Temple just for me to see the altar (He Opened The Temple For Me), or my synaesthetic experiences while listening to music (Cromofonía 3), and the remembrance of the Aula Magna of the University City in Caracas, my dearest concert hall back there -Las Nubes (de Calder)-. Also, my love for the moving images is present as well with two tracks, L'Arrivée, based on the silent film with the same title created by Peter Tscherkassky, and Cinematicals, based on a short animation film about quest and fantastic worlds yet to be real. There is also an Homage to the classic vocal jazz singing with a slightly asymmetrical arrangement of the quintessential Route 66, the only track of the album with non-vocal sounds applied.
Miguel, available worldwide for streaming and downloading on your preferred platform