Today we’d like to introduce you to Eduardo Del Signore.
Hi Eduardo, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I was born in Montevideo Uruguay a block away from the neighborhood called “Barrio Ansina” which was a representative of deep Afro-Uruguayan roots. The Afro-descendants called those neighborhoods “Nations”. There were a few Nations around town and each of them had their own musical voice and culture represented by variations of what is known now as the rhythms of “Candombe”. The Candombe of barrio Ansina had the most aggressive and rebellious “rhythm calls” or “Llamadas”.
I remember when I was between 2-3 years old during summer nights, the Ansina Nation would awaken and start parading with their drums along the block. They would wake me up around midnight with exciting rhythms, I would get out of bed and go to wake my father up so he could take me to where the drummers were parading. He would get out of bed, dress up and take me to the Center of the Call. Once I was there parading with the drums (tamboriles), a very strong feeling will make me dance and cry, a joy that would take over my whole moment.
Throughout life, I am always looking for and finding that same feeling in all artistic forms of expression since I understand those to be the purest representations of humanity.
That feeling seems to be something that doesn’t change, a beacon that always takes me back to the moment called now…
When I was 19 years old (1974) I happen to buy my first lottery ticket and won enough money to pause everything and contemplate options.
There was at that time a full-blown military dictatorship ruling over my country and even though the situation was rather dark I managed to be part of many recording sessions that became classics of the Uruguayan Popular Music, such as my work with Uruguayan singer-songwriter Eduardo Mateo. Working with Mateo introduced me to many other artists with whom I ended up working with. In 1976 I met a French and a Senegalese guys who were traveling on a sailing boat. They’ve arrived to Montevideo from Brazil after crossing the Atlantic from the Islands of Cape Verde and were on their way to Buenos Aires to get new sails for the boat.
Somehow, they ended up in one of my performances at a theatre in Montevideo and we established a wonderful friendship that ended up with an invitation from the boat’s captain to create a collaboration between sailing and music, joining them in their journey of life.
From the 5 musicians in our group, 3 of us accepted the invitation and after working in the maintenance of the boat and preparing for the journey. We named the group Tacuabé. We arrived in Rio de Janeiro on October 12, 1977, and one week after we received the visit of Milton Nascimento, one the most influential artists of the Brazilian Popular Music.
We had a friend in common, a Brazilian poet Chico Rodrigues, who told Milton that there was a group of Latin American musicians traveling in a sailing boat. He came one day to meet with us, and we performed for him.
Later Milton invited us to his home for more music and a birthday celebration. Not too long after Milton invited us to record with him in his Brazilian Popular Music classic “Club da Esquina 2”. It was a wonderful experience for me personally and got to meet some the most beautiful Brazilian artists.
In November of 1980 my beautiful son Alfonso was born…
In 1981, I went back to Uruguay where I ended up performing and recording many albums for a wide variety of great artists for a period of one and half years.
In 1982 I came to the USA where another chapter of life started for me, with a new language and a very different social and financial landscape. After a couple of years and a stay in Portland, Oregon where I worked in five different groups and great artists such as Denny Chericone a passionate human being and pianist who was the first artist to interpret “Portland” one of my original compositions in the form of a piano suite.
In 1986 I was able to join the Musicians Institute in Hollywood where I met many other artists from the Los Angeles music industry scene.
I met one of my most beloved human beings and musical mentor, Maestro Moacir Santos during a performance in Hollywood and ended up studying with him for a few years. He changed the course of my musical journey, taking me to new depths and expanding my perceptions of creative possibilities.
While at the Musicians Institute I met a couple of artists who were signed to Windham Hill records and were in need of finding a bass player who could play the rhythms of Candombe. I ended recording in most of their “High Plateux” album. During the sessions, I met and worked with Mark Isham, Alex Acuña, and many other musicians from the recording industry…
In 1989 I met Dionne Warwick, her friends, family and ended up collaborating with her in the preproduction stages of her music work ”Aquarelas do Brasil” and Dionne also sang beautifully in “Captivated” my first solo album that was recently re-issued for blockchain distribution by 3 PM, a South Korean music label that distributes in the Asian market.
In 1991 I met and started working with Jon Anderson from the group “Yes”, and ended up doing five albums with him, including a participation in his last collaboration with Vangelis “Page of Life”.
The opportunity presented itself to introduce Jon Anderson to Milton Nascimento, after imagining for a long time how those two voices could sound together.
From that encounter two albums came to be, “Angelus” from Milton Nascimento and “Deseo” from Jon Anderson, also “Natal Sem Fome” a concert benefit that took place in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and was televised live for an estimated audience of 45 million people…
In 1995 I suffered a serious car accident that put me out of commission for several months, but also gave me the opportunity to reconsider priorities.
I decided to bring my voice of artistic expression to the forefront and since then I’ve released several music works, realized several productions, and in 2002 created a concert series named “A Call 2Peace multimedia events” inspired by a comment from a conference where best seller author and Ambassador of Peace Mr. Prem Rawat (www.premrawat.com) was talking about Peace as the responsibility of the individual, something I immediately identified with. At the end of his speech Mr. Rawat asked, “What can you do?” in regards to participating in such realm.
Since what I do is music, the concert series was born with the purpose of presenting that simple message, “Peace is my responsibility” (not the responsibility of a neighbor, politician, or priest), and a platform of artistic expression to organize concert benefits to support many different initiatives from other charity organizations.
We started in 2003 performing with different guest artists in Tokyo, Japan, then in Mutzig, a locality near Strasbourg, France, and after that, Copenhagen, Denmark, Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, Montevideo and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, Rolle and Laussane in Switzerland and Echo Valley farm in Wisconsin.
The second chapter of the concert series started in 2015 in Santa Paula, then Santa Barbara, Oxnard, Santa Monica, and Westchester. This time with a core group formed by Federico Ramos, Sonia Kazarova, Scarlet Rivera, Ron Wagner, myself, and very special guests with works in the areas of dance, painting, and spoken word.
During 2018 we started organizing concerts to promote and raise funds for different organizations in the Los Angeles area, as well as for a school of the arts based in Lebanon called “Philokalia” under the direction of Sister Marana Saad.
The same year I was commissioned by the ClimateMusic Project (climatemusic.org), an organization based in San Francisco, to compose music in collaboration with a group of scientists who study the causes and effects of climate change during a span of 150-200 years starting around the beginning of the industrial revolution with projections into the year 2050 on negative and/or positive outcomes depending on our activism.
I wrote two suites for this project inspired in the “human condition” which according to my understanding is the main cause of the changes in climate that we are already experiencing.
One 17 minutes composition called “Discovery Realization” and a second one named “Audyssey” lasting approximately 11 minutes. The way these collaborations worked was by incorporating the studies presented by the scientists in the form of graphics, transformed into mathematical progressions, and then via an algorithm, into music notes.
In 2019 A Call 2Peace was established as a 501C3 nonprofit with tax-exempt status. In February of 2020, I received a “Grammy Nomination” and two “Independent Music Awards” for my work with Sekou Andrews and The String Theory.
The following April, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in association with “Food-Cycle LA”, we started the “Food Recovery Program” and since then, we have distributed over 500,000 pounds of food to people in need mainly in the West Side of Los Angeles and lately to the families of Ukrainian refugees who relocated in LA.
In November of 2021, I started a one-year Jazz and Eclectic music concert series at a restaurant in Santa Monica called “La Puglia” to support participating artists and promote the AC2P Initiatives, that ended on October 25th.
This experience allowed me to meet some of the most amazing talent that this town has to offer. I learned, healed, and loved from it in such a way that the doors to my hope in humanity got to be opened a bit wider, blossoming in presence and beauty.
I was invited by the ClimateMusic Project to perform “Audyssey” last September 20th, 2022, at the World Economic Forum that took place in Manhattan, New York during the United Nations General Assembly week. The private performance took place in front of 70+ dignitaries from different countries around the World and CEOs of multi-national corporations, as well as the president of the WEF and its purpose was to emphasize in the need to focus in sustainability and actions towards healing the Earth.
I was also invited during this event to give two interviews, one of them a live webcast for the WEF network of about 25 million people around the World.
Last October 11th, another invitation came for an event that took place at the KQED studios in San Francisco organized by The New York Times called “Art & Tech in a Warming World” for the public premiere of Audyssey.
I was also interviewed by TRT, the official media outlet of the country of Turkey, and a few podcasts locally.
There are many works in the making at the moment that’ll start being released very soon.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Military dictatorship in Uruguay starting in 1972-73 until 1985. Adapting to life in a sailing boat 1977-1981 (easiest adaptation, once you learn the ways of nature, there are no surprises nor betrayals). Music industry corruption everywhere.
Racism in the USA including insults, advice to go back to where I came from, and physical attacks.
But most of all, keeping the respect for my own life in clear perspective.
The challenges presented themselves every time I ended up living in different countries as an artists for several years and they’ll keep presenting themselves in different times and forms to let me know about their hearts’ emptiness and remind me of the incredible value of the arts.
Many years ago, as I was walking along the ruins of Barrio Ansina, demolished by the dictatorship, I saw something written in a wall that I’ve never forgotten, it translated to “a country that doesn’t invest in the arts is doomed to mediocrity”.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My work in music spans through many areas of the creative landscape. Lover of Life, music composer, lyricist, artistic production, performer, production engineer, video and audio postproduction, music education, graphic design, 4 languages, philanthropy, cook, etc. 2017 I started representing a high-quality brand of strings for musical instruments Made In Germany called Optima-Strings. Many products of this brand are coated in 24K Gold for durability, resistance to any natural form of acid like the sweat from the hands, and dirt doesn’t stick to it.
Once I discovered these strings, they’re the only brand I use in all my instruments.
I included many details in the previous page about my origins, journeys, and evolution.
www.signoremusic.com
www.acall2peace.org
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up.
The feeling of joy, the ecstasy of Candombe drumming, the reflection of the Sun and the Moon in the sea. Our family beach house in Uruguay at a resort called Solymar and my connection with nature. My mother and her parents, my father waking up at midnight to take me to the Candombe parades in the Barrio Ansina. Our dogs and birds. A beautiful neighbor named Ana.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.signoremusic.com
- Instagram: @edudelsignore
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eduardo.delsignore
- Twitter: @Ac2Pfoundation
- Youtube: ac2p foundation
- Other: www.acall2peace.org
Image Credits
Cafi 1977
