Gaby Moreno

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Moreno Gaby
Biography (Excerpt)

¡Spangled!—a collaboration between Guatemalan-born singer-songwriter Gaby Moreno and American musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer Van Dyke Parks—celebrates the migration of song across the Americas. The ten-song set spans more than a century, including a bolero from Panama, a bossa nova from Brazil, a song by Moreno, Trinidadian songwriter David Rudder's "The Immigrants," and an ballad from the Southwest US: Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, and Jim Dickinson’s “Across the Borderline,” performed with Jackson Browne.

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10
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Facebook URL
https://www.facebook.com/gabymorenoband
Twitter URL
https://twitter.com/gabymorenomusic
Instagram URL
https://www.instagram.com/gaby_moreno/
Youtube URL
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1h3FZ8vCxViozCLT-C3loA

¡Spangled!—a collaboration between Guatemalan-born singer-songwriter Gaby Moreno and American musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer Van Dyke Parks—on Nonesuch Records on October 4, 2019 (on Metamorfosis in Latin America). The ten-song set celebrates the migration of song across the Americas and spans more than a century, including a bolero from Panama, a  bossa nova from Brazil, and an elegiac ballad from the Southwest United States—Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, and Jim Dickinson's "Across the Borderline," performed with Cooder and Jackson Browne. The album also includes one of Moreno's own songs as well as the previously released track "The Immigrants" by Trinidadian songwriter David Rudder. Pre-order to download "Across the Borderline" and "The Immigrants" now.

In choosing the album's songs, "we didn't want to focus just on Latin America," Moreno says. "We could use songs from the US as well. I look at it as one continent, the Americas. It was important for me to bring those two together—and it was also important, because of these difficult political times we are going through, to speak about immigration."

Moreno and Parks first performed together a decade ago at Largo in Los Angeles. Afterward, as Moreno recalls, "We had a really long conversation about how much we love this music and how amazing it would be to collaborate together." They then began sending music back and forth via email. "He'd send me songs from Latin America that even I hadn't heard, introducing me to a lot of music that I should have known. The next thing you know, we had ten songs."

When Parks was invited to present a concert at the Roskilde Festival on July 4, 2010, he asked to have an orchestra, and Moreno, join him. "I decided to do all songs that were Pan American. I wanted to present the world before the era of 'The Ugly American,'" he said. When they got back together recently to record this music, Parks brought in Cooder, guitarist Grant Geissman, percussionist Jim Keltner, and Browne; assembled string and wind sections; and also brought in the marimba player Matt Cook. 

Gaby Moreno is a Guatemalan native who made Los Angeles her home almost two decades ago. She has established herself as a singer-songwriter with a repertoire incorporating blues, jazz, folk, and soul, performed in Spanish and English. She is a frequent guest on Chris Thile's Live from Here public radio show. Moreno was awarded a Best New Artist Latin Grammy in 2013 and garnered a nomination for Best Latin Pop Album at the 2017 Grammys for Illusion. She also is the co-composer of the theme for Parks and Recreation. 

Van Dyke Parks is a storied composer, arranger, and producer who has worked with artists ranging from the Mothers Of Invention to the Beach Boys—as well as Phil Ochs, Harry Nilsson,  Little Feat, Inara George, and Joanna Newsom. He studied at the American Boychoir School in Princeton and later at Carnegie Tech, where Aaron Copland was one of his instructors. Parks has been an actor, a record executive, and composer and arranger on many Hollywood films. But it was in the early 1960s, when he was performing with his brother Carson Parks at coffee houses in Southern California that he began to explore and perform Latin American music in earnest.

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Latest Release

  • October 30, 2020

    Chris Thile updates his song "Thank You, New York," featuring Gaby Moreno, for 2020. The original version was featured on Thile's 2017 album, Thanks for Listening. "Right now, with how easy it is to be the talker on social media, how hard it is to maintain focus or give something enough attention to appreciate it, we're in a place where listening is a precious commodity," Thile said. The songs are "a celebration of people who haven't switched off, despite being given every reason to do so."

Releases

News

  • August 25, 2021

    Lake Street Dive's Rachael Price, Punch Brothers, and Gaby Moreno are among the artists who will perform at The Kennedy Center's 50th Anniversary Celebration Concert, hosted by Audra McDonald with special guest Caroline Kennedy on September 14. The event will be broadcast on PBS as The Kennedy Center at 50 on October 1. Other performers include Christian McBride, Ben Folds, Kelli O'Hara, Renée Fleming, and more. 

  • February 9, 2021

    Chris Thile, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Rhiannon Giddens, Jeremy Denk, Mandy Patinkin, Gaby Moreno, and Nico Muhly will take part in NY PopsUp, a festival featuring hundreds of pop-up performances—many of which are free of charge and all open to the public—throughout New York City and State. Additionally, Thile and Salvant are on a council of artistic advisors partnering with curator Zack Winokur to program the series. NYPopsUp, which will run from Saturday, February 20, through Labor Day, will make stages out of existing landscapes, including iconic transit stations, parks, subway platforms, museums, skate parks, street corners, fire escapes, parking lots, storefronts, and upstate venues. The festival is being coordinated with state public health officials and will strictly adhere to Department of Health COVID-19 protocols.

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About Gaby Moreno

  • ¡Spangled!—a collaboration between Guatemalan-born singer-songwriter Gaby Moreno and American musician, songwriter, arranger, and producer Van Dyke Parks—on Nonesuch Records on October 4, 2019 (on Metamorfosis in Latin America). The ten-song set celebrates the migration of song across the Americas and spans more than a century, including a bolero from Panama, a  bossa nova from Brazil, and an elegiac ballad from the Southwest United States—Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, and Jim Dickinson's "Across the Borderline," performed with Cooder and Jackson Browne. The album also includes one of Moreno's own songs as well as the previously released track "The Immigrants" by Trinidadian songwriter David Rudder. Pre-order to download "Across the Borderline" and "The Immigrants" now.

    In choosing the album's songs, "we didn't want to focus just on Latin America," Moreno says. "We could use songs from the US as well. I look at it as one continent, the Americas. It was important for me to bring those two together—and it was also important, because of these difficult political times we are going through, to speak about immigration."

    Moreno and Parks first performed together a decade ago at Largo in Los Angeles. Afterward, as Moreno recalls, "We had a really long conversation about how much we love this music and how amazing it would be to collaborate together." They then began sending music back and forth via email. "He'd send me songs from Latin America that even I hadn't heard, introducing me to a lot of music that I should have known. The next thing you know, we had ten songs."

    When Parks was invited to present a concert at the Roskilde Festival on July 4, 2010, he asked to have an orchestra, and Moreno, join him. "I decided to do all songs that were Pan American. I wanted to present the world before the era of 'The Ugly American,'" he said. When they got back together recently to record this music, Parks brought in Cooder, guitarist Grant Geissman, percussionist Jim Keltner, and Browne; assembled string and wind sections; and also brought in the marimba player Matt Cook. 

    Gaby Moreno is a Guatemalan native who made Los Angeles her home almost two decades ago. She has established herself as a singer-songwriter with a repertoire incorporating blues, jazz, folk, and soul, performed in Spanish and English. She is a frequent guest on Chris Thile's Live from Here public radio show. Moreno was awarded a Best New Artist Latin Grammy in 2013 and garnered a nomination for Best Latin Pop Album at the 2017 Grammys for Illusion. She also is the co-composer of the theme for Parks and Recreation. 

    Van Dyke Parks is a storied composer, arranger, and producer who has worked with artists ranging from the Mothers Of Invention to the Beach Boys—as well as Phil Ochs, Harry Nilsson,  Little Feat, Inara George, and Joanna Newsom. He studied at the American Boychoir School in Princeton and later at Carnegie Tech, where Aaron Copland was one of his instructors. Parks has been an actor, a record executive, and composer and arranger on many Hollywood films. But it was in the early 1960s, when he was performing with his brother Carson Parks at coffee houses in Southern California that he began to explore and perform Latin American music in earnest.

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