Gina Chavez Trio Info Kit
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Gina ChavezGina Chavez is uncovering her lost Latin roots through music. An Austin native whose parents are of Mexican and Swiss-German descent, Chavez was raised on cassettes of Lyle Lovett, Little Richard and Michael Jackson. Her lifelong musical journey was inspired at Austin’s famed Continental Club and led to a semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and all the way to eight months of volunteer work in one of the roughest neighborhoods of El Salvador.
Her latest album, Up.Rooted, is a passionate collection of bilingual songs traversing cumbia, bossa nova, vintage pop, reggaeton, and folk combined with dynamic vocals and sharp social commentary. Released February 2014, Up.Rooted aired on National Public Radio’s (NPR) First Listen series. Soon after, NPR invited her back for a special feature on All Things Considered, and showcased her music on Heavy Rotation and Alt. Latino’s “Favorite Latin music of 2014.” The Austin Chronicle gave the album a rare four-star review and The Boston Globe hailed Up.Rooted “as confident as it is refreshing.” Chavez frequently tours Texas and the East Coast while building markets in California, Colorado and the Midwest. She represented the City of Austin as the Official Music Ambassador to Japan two years in a row, and has lead multi-cultural children’s workshops at Brown University, Pachanga Latino Music Festival, throughout El Salvador, and in libraries across Austin. One of Austin’s most beloved world music/indie artists, Chavez is known for an inimitable sound that balances North American and Latin influences. She and her band took home three 2013-14 Austin Music Awards, including Best Female Vocals, Best Latin Traditional and Best Latin Rock, while placing in six other categories. This followed a 2012-13 Austin Music Award for Best Latin Traditional, and praise from NPR’s All Songs Considered and Alt. Latino as one of eight “New Latin Artists at SXSW.” Since returning from eight months of mission work in El Salvador, Chavez and her partner, Jodi Granado, co-founded the Niña Arriba college scholarship fund for young women they taught in a gang-dominated suburb of San Salvador. Southern Living and Olay named Chavez one of 11 “southern iconic women who have left a beautiful footprint across the South.” |
Sammy Foster
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Sammy Foster is an award-winning drummer with a desire to help others grow in their musical ability. With a foundation on piano, Foster’s music career began at the age of 16, playing drums in clubs on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas. He has since toured Texas and parts of the United States with bands ranging from bluegrass to hard rock, pop/rock (Color and Light) to reggae/ metal (Full Service), and Texas Country (Ryan Turner) to Brazilian Samba (Austin Samba). In 2013, Foster won the Guitar Center Drum-Off, one of the largest drum competitions in the world. Foster is a foundational member of Gina Chavez, a six-piece Latin folk/pop band that swept the 2014 Austin Music Awards with Best Latin Traditional, Best Latin Rock and Best Female Vocals. He recently returned from a music retreat in Mexico, and a highly-promoted week-long tour in El Salvador with the Gina Chavez trio.
When he’s not performing or mastering new rhythms, Foster is teaching them. He started giving private lessons on piano, drum set, and middle school percussion at the age of 20. He learned to modify his teaching for different ages and learning styles at a music therapy center where he taught percussion to clients with movement disorders, as the sole music teacher at a private elementary school, and as a bucket drumming teacher at a community program for youth on probation. A self-starter at heart, Foster now offers a bucket drumming curriculum and instructional videos for music teachers around the world. |
Michael Romero
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Michael Romero is an accomplished singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist driven by a desire for social change. At home on guitar, trumpet, mandolin, charango, glockenspiel, and at the mic, Romero was voted one of Austin’s top ten horn players in the 2013-14 Austin Music Awards and won First Place at the Bugle Boy Songwriter Showcase in 2007. He has performed on NPR’s Baltimore affiliate WYPR, was featured as a presenter with X8 Interactive Drumming at Austin City Limits Music Festival, and selected as one of eight artists-in-residence with 360 Xochi Quetzal in Jalisco, Mexico, in 2014.
Romero’s folk-jazz-Latin band, Strumero, has released three independent albums centered on themes of social justice. After two years as a Youth Development Volunteer with the Peace Corps in Honduras, Romero joined fellow Austinite Gina Chavez on stage, singing harmony, swapping the lead, and often playing multiple instruments at once. In 2014, the band took home three Austin Music Awards, including Best Latin Traditional and Best Latin Rock. Romero is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with Communities In Schools of Central Texas. He was presented the 2014 Unsung Hero Award for his creative work to empower youth to succeed and achieve in life. |
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