| Saúl Vera | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Born | October 2, 1959 Caracas, Venezuela |
| Genres | Venezuelan popular music, Jazz |
| Occupations | musician, bandola executant, composer, musical director |
| Instruments | bandola llanera |
| Associated acts | Saúl Vera y Ensamble |
| Notable instruments | |
| cuatro, mandolin, maracas | |
Saúl Vera (born October 2, 1959) is a Venezuelan musician, bandola executant and composer.
At the age of seven, he began to learn to play the cuatro and the mandolin next to his older brother. Through him he became acquainted with diverse popular musicians who had influence in his musical formation.
At the age of 16, he began his bandola studies, received private lessons from Eduardo Serrano and made formal studies at the Jose Lorenzo Llamoza music school, where he learned jazz harmony and piano with Gerry Weil.
In 1976 he began learning to play the bandola llanera, a stringed instrument from the lute family played in the Venezuelan plains since the 16th century. On his own initiative, he learned to play all the stringed instruments used in Venezuelan music. In 1980, he was invited by the government of Japan to a youth interchange. He subsequently left university to concentrate definitively on music.
In 1986, he founded the group Saúl Vera y ensamble to popularize folk and popular Venezuelan music, integrated by: flute, French Oboe, clarinet, Bassoon, horn, bass, maracas, cuatro, among other instruments.
In 1989, he made a national tour with the program Music and Traditions, from which the first recorded compact disc in the country was made.
In 1991 he became Coordinator of the factories of music of Fundarte, working with Venezuelan musicians, such as Simón Díaz, Soledad Bravo, Cecilia Todd, Yordano, Franco de Vita, Alberto Naranjo and Serenata Guayanesa, among others. He has performed in important venues in Venezuela, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, France, Finland, Barbados and Germany, among others. He has participated in several festivals, The Nancy and Dijon Folk Music Festival, Dock Festival, Caritesta Festival, Hamburg Festival, and tours through the Canary Islands, among others.
His interest in the bandola encompasses not only performance of the instrument, also a fascination of its cultural context and development. Saúl Vera has taught both mandolin and bandola at several conservatories in Caracas, and is the author of the only known bandola llanera method using a tablature that dates from the beginning of this stringed instrument.