Que Pena: Original Salsa Instrumental feat. Toto Zara
"Que Pena" is an original instrumental from Toto Zara's 7th album "Antillano" which features salsa, bolero, cumbia and other styles he wrote durng his tours of his home country of Spain, France (the Latin Quarter) Brazil and New York. Toto was the youngest of several siblings that became a popular european family group called "Zara"
In 1973, his family had a number one hit with "Eres Tu" one of only 5 foriegn language songs to make it to number one! recorded under the group name of "Mocedades" (Musical Youth) from Bilbao, it was this song hat brought Toto and his 3 brothers and 2 sisters to America where they eventually settled in Las Vegas.
Toto's father (family name Zaratiegui) founded a nation school of the arts in Tafallia, Spain which today still stand in the town square as a historical landmark. At the age of 8, Toto was featured guitarist and flamingo-dancer during public concerts by noted French composer Gilbert Becaud.
Admagination's "10 Minute Choir" actually takes about 30 minutes...truth be told! Many times we've needed to add the big choir sound to jingles, live production tracks and original songs. Needless to say, we don't have the budget or the room AND we need it yesterday! This technique uses only 1 female and 1 male vocalist!
For the past 26 years, we've called Boise, Idaho home. It's a great place to connect, raise a family and there is a vibrant arts community and great live music scene. We have been able to expand our music, technology, business and community involvement not just here, but across the country by way of the great contacts we've nurtured.
Berklee has always been known for their dozens of top big band ensembles. From the premier Phil Wilson's "Thursday Night Dues Band", "Herb Pomeroy's Recording Big Band" and of course the Buddy Rich Student big band and the Woody Herman Student big band...et al. Great training ground for instrumentalists but didn't address the style of horn playing that nwas most likely to be a horn players first out of college gig. 3-5 piece horns sections that were much more exposed, had to sing back up and yes...sometimes do dance steps.
In 1983, as a part of the Professional Writing and Arranging Department (Professional Writing Division Chair / Ted Pease) I became involved in the very beginning of development with what is now know as the Songwriting Department and the offering of songwriting as a degree program. Myself, along with Pat Pattison and a core team of other faculty that taught Pop Song Composition (Jon Aldrich, Mike Idhe, Rob Rose and Jon Stevens) started working on a basic syllabus overview. As we got closer to actually creating the full syllabus, several other talented faculty joined the project in the areas of MP&E, Arranging, Vocal Department, Ensemble Department and several administrators.