Miguel Blanco
Miguel Blanco's style comes from afroamerican music, jazz, funk, latin. But he also likes contemporary, pop, flamenco and rumba catalana. His influences include Miles Davis, Paco de Lucía, Wayne Shorter, Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, Tito Puente and also Erik Satie, Ravel, Bartok, Magritte, Klee, Lorca, Ford Coppola.
Miguel Blanco's work range over different fields as a composer, arranger, producer, conductor, performer and educator.
His music has been recorded and performed by leading latin jazz musicians like Jerry González, Paquito D'Rivera and leading figures of hispanic pop like Miguel Ríos, Charly García, Fito Páez or La Barbería del Sur.
Miguel Blanco's music has been performed and commissioned by orchestras like the Arturo O'Farrill's AFLJO or Bobby Sanabria MSM Jazz Orchestra (New York), the Swiss Jazz orchestra, Chucho Lopez Big Band (México) and orchestras from Germany, Holland, Australia or Russia. Miguel has also recorded his music with the Symphonic Orchestras of Madrid, Prague and Bratislava.
He also contributed to the music of cuban artists such as Omara Portuondo, Reinaldo Creagh (Vieja Trova Santiaguera), Olga Guillot, Lucrecia and the mexican Armando Manzanero, among others.
He has written over 800 arrangements and original compositions and has been awarded several times. He has been leading for years his own Big Band "Afrodisian Orchestra" and his latin jazz septet "La Calle Caliente".
Miguel Blanco was born in Barcelona and studied guitar until he went to Berklee College of MUsic (Boston) where he studied with Herb Pomeroy and switched to the bass. He alternates his artistic activity with the position as an arranging professor at Conservatory of Basque Country.
AWARDS
1987- Best guitarist award at the Tenerife Jazz Festival (Canary Islands)
1991- Best arranger award. Berklee College of Music
1992- First prize in Jazz composition SGAE (Spain)
1995- First prize in Jazz composition SGAE (Spain)
1996- Best music in Europe for radio advertasing (Firenze, Italy)
1998- Third prize in Latin Jazz composition SGAE (La Habana)
2005- Best jazz album award. Enderrock Magazine (Barcelona)
2014- "The Offense of the drum", Arturo o'Farrill's CD with Miguel's music, has been nominated for the Grammies in the Best latin jazz album category.