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Eguie Castrillo
Castrillo has been successful and made a good living playing congas, but his first love always remains for the timbales. In a salute to the 1950s Palladium era in New York, he had always had a dream since 1989 to be a timbalero, leading a large ensemble playing mambos, cha-chas, and rumbas. Castrillo's first excursion with the orchestra of his dreams was a Latin Big Band concert at the Berklee Performance Center in November of 2004. "I did a tribute to the Mambo Kings, Tito Puente, Machito, and Tito Rodriguez." This show was highly appreciated by the Media and all the public with a warm respone, in attendance which motivated Castrillo to work on a mambo CD titled "Palladium Tradition", released in 2005, and he was thrilled. While Castrillo is aware that Puente left big shoes to fill, he aims to do justice as much as possible, to what he can do to keep the music alive. "I want to continue passing on knowledge and stories to my audience for them to do the same thing".
The Orchestra recently played, at Berklee's Performance Center doing a show called "Latin Meets Jazz" to a full house, and they also performed at the Massachusetts new Govenor Deval Patrick's Inuagural Ceremony to an attending audience of 10,0000. They had the honor to be the only Latin artists to play at this event at the end of the closing event. Their world tour is being organized and performances in mayor Jazz and Latin Festivals are going to be the venues.
Eguie's Tours and Perfomances include:Tito Puente, Jennifer Lopez, KC & The Sunshine Band, United Nations Orchestra, Michel Camilo, Israel "Cachao" López, Steve Winwood Paquito D' Rivera, Gloria Estefan, Ruben Blades, Arturo Sandoval, Joaquín Cortez, Dave Valentín, Giovanni Hidalgo, Michael Brecker and Celia Cruz.
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Artist Biography - Eguie Castrillo
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Castrillo's primarily, displayed a hint of musical quality,when he played a tiny organ in his parents' living room. He grew up in the Cupey section of San Juan in Puerto Rico. In the end, Castrillo's parents diverted his attraction from the organ when he was seven years old by gifting him a set of timbales for Christmas. One artist whose music deeply impressed Castrillo early on was the late, great band leader and percussionist Tito Puente. Says Castrillo, "After I saw him playing timbales, I knew what I wanted to be a timbalero." He met Giovanni Hidalgo, when he was 11 years old, and who Castrillo has staunch belief in as one of the best conga players anywhere in the world.
The acquaintance helped widen Castrillo's musical stratum. "I was lucky to grow up around him," Castrillo says. "After we met, I started playing conga and bongos and even a little bit of bata drums." Nowadays, Castrillo is highly in demand as a percussionist and demands an authority on the rhythms of the Caribbean countries Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad and Tobago. Castrillo started playing professionally with several groups in high school. By the time he left Puerto Rico in 1993, he had played with all of the top names in the country. In Miami, he was soon hired by Latin-jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval. Says an excited Castrillo, "I also get called upon to play all kinds of grooves. You can apply any rhythm to the congas. You can be playing salsa and then change to calypso, or cross over to American music like funk, rock, blues, or whatever. You can also play the traditional rhythms of different Carribean countries like the bomba from Puerto Rico or rhythms from Venezuela. That is the beauty of that instrument."
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