“Where have all the rock stars gone? The experience of an immigrant musician struggling to navigate the dangerous seas of the music industry in the midst of its current demise” - a presentation about music, art, reinvention and immigrant life in the American continent, to take place in the George Pearl Hall Auditorium on the UNM Campus on July 31st at 6:30pm as part of the University Libraries Summer Sunset Lecture Series.
Matias Pizarro, a musician/artist/cultural promoter and underground activist, will speak on his upbringing in Chile, Brazil and El Salvador as a budding musician and on his later experience as an immigrant artist in the United States.
Chilean born Matias Pizarro has constantly reinvented himself within new musical directions, life realities, times and cities while offering fresh musical proposals through constant and relentless independent promotion and touring. His musical projects – Alternative political rock band STOIC FRAME, Latin Electronica Reggae outfit MEZKLAH, and Afro Latin percussion and singing troop CONCEPTO TAMBOR, have explored different musical styles and developed an innovative approach to conventional music. On the music business level, he created EL COMANDANTE RECORDS, TWISTED FICTION PUBLISHING and ALIEN VENDETTA PRODUCTIONS as entities to develop a collective/network of leading musicians and artists that join forces to work together, create synergy and generate innovative opportunities.
His bands’ music has reached the #1 position in the US Radio & Records Latin Alternative Charts, with accompanying videos that obtained regular rotation on MTV Espanol. He has been instrumental in securing licensing placements nationally and internationally on channels such as FOX, Telemundo, Univision, MTV, Black Entertainment Television, among others, and his music has been distributed in the US, Canada and Japan. He currently lives in Long Beach, California but spends much time in New Mexico as well as Chile. Matias Pizarro’s presentation will be accompanied by former STOIC FRAME bandmate and singer/songwriter Keith Sanchez.
Keith Sanchez is a singer/songwriter, and recording artist whose music has been distributed throughout the United States and Latin America. He toured and performed as lead singer and lyricist for the band Stoic Frame, an act that garnered a #1 charting song on the national R&R charts and became an underground phenomena.
Keith grew up in a small town in the heart of the New Mexican desert called Belen. It was here in this magical place that the seeds of music and ceaseless muse were planted. At a young age his father’s work took the family to El Salvador, Central America, deep in the midst of turbulent civil war. His eyes were pried wide open to the true immensity of the world. A world filled with stark inequality and violence, intricately woven textiles of diverse culture and political struggle, yet also a world full of possibility, art, and hope. The stories of Central American poets, musicians, and thinkers who lost their lives in the name of their art and perception left a brand on his heart forever. Keith presently works as the music director and principal performer for Carlos Santana’s Maria Maria Restaurants throughout the southwest and California and will release a full length solo effort entitled “Muse” in June 2010.
