Sandra Mirabal & Jakob Klaasse on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

2nd cd of Sandra Mirabal Jean-Claude and Jakob Klaasse, called 'CADENCIA (Songs from Cuba and Haiti)', out on the Dutch label Basta (www.bastamusic.com). This cd features Sandra and Jakob singing and playing Haïtian and Cuban songs. Songs which her mother Martha Jean-Claude wrote or sung – ‘Invitacion al vodu’, ‘C’est bon’, ‘Choucoune’ a.o. - and Cuban classics, as ‘Drume negrita’, ‘La comparsa’. Sandra sings in Creole and Spanish. Most tracks feature two of Holland’s Cuban musicians, Liber Torriente and Marcos Betancourt. Together with Dutch musicians, some of them from the Antilles and Surinam.

Sandra Mirabal (sandramirabal@hetnet.nl) is the first Cuban female clarinetist that graduated summa cum laude. She played first clarinet in th Orquesta Nacional de Opera y Ballet de Cuba and solo clarinet in the National Wind Orchestra of Cuba. She formed part of the Clarinet Quintet of Havana. During ten years she was a singer and clarinetist in the group Makandal, the group founded by her mother, the Haïtian singer Martha Jean-Claude. With Makandal, a group that fed on the rich sources of Haïtian and Cuban folklore, she toured extensively through the world. Since 1999 Sandra lives in the Netherlands. Together with pianist Jakob Klaasse she recorded a cd ‘Danzas and Contradanzas from 19th century Cuba’, released on the Dutch label Basta. This cd was nominated in 2005 for an Edison, a prestigious Dutch music award.

Sandra was a clarinet teacher and gave masterclasses at Havana’s Conservatorium Amadeo Roldán in Cuba. She also gave masterclasses at the Universidad Autonoma in Mexico and L’Ecole Sante Trinité in Haïti and taught the clarinet at Bayamo’s Music School (Oriente), the Escuela Fernando Carnicer and the Guillermo Tomas-school in Guanabacoa. From 1996 to 1999 she was a teacher of the clarinet, music theory and singing at the ‘Taller de Musicos’ music academy in Madrid, Spain. There she also founded and conducted choirs.

Performances abroad

New York, USA: Madison Square Gardens - Montreal, Canada: Maison d’ Haïti, Place des Arts - Mexico City, Mexico: Festival de Oposicion and the Festival de musica Cubana (with the Clarinet Quintet of Havana) - Madrid, Spain: first clarinet in Sergio Vitier’s Cuban group - Panama City, Panama: Solidarity Concert for Haiti - Port au Prince, Haïti: Concert at the occasion of Jean Beltran Aristide’s Presidential inauguration - Japan: Solo clarinetist of the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba - Lisbon, Portugal: Festival de Chevere (1998)

below this text is a presentation of cd's on which Sandra played the clarinet, sang or played other instruments

see also: www.myspace.com/jakobklaasse

Ever since his classical studies Composition and Piano at the Amsterdam Conservatory Jakob Klaasse (jakob@klaasse.net) is working as a composer (soundtracks, tv- and radio leaders, jingles), musician (toured as a keyboardist/ arranger/ band leader with many of Holland’s most famous groups, i.e. Boudewijn de Groot, Doe Maar), producer (of more than a hundred cd’s, some of them with gold and platinum sales. For five of the cd’s he was awarded an Edison, a prestigious Dutch music award) and arranger (of many recording sessions and tours, including Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Limburg Symphony Orchestra and The Metropole Orchestra). In 2007 he toured through Holland and Belgium with a music theatre-piece, based loosely on the songs of the most famous Dutch pop group ever, Doe Maar. With that very same group he will play for a series of stadium concerts in the summer of 2008

Jakob composed music for documentaries, feature films, corporate films (a.o. Philips, Canon), animation films, ballets, theatre. He was longtime free lance composer with national Dutch Broadcasting corporation VPRO, for which he composed stationcalls and ID’s and numerous radio jingles. Also for other national public radio and TV stations he composed leaders and jingles.

Ever since his studies at Amsterdam Conservatorium Jakob performed, almost always as a keyboardist/ musical director/ arranger, in thousands of concerts. From Pinkpop - Holland’s biggest outdoor festival - to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam – one of the world’s top three concert halls. With many of Holland’s most famous groups and musicians of popular (Boudewijn de Groot, Doe Maar) and classical music (Louis Andriessen) he did extensive tours and theatre-seasons. He wrote the orchestral arrangements for nationwide tours of famous Dutch artists with symphony orchestras; but also arranged some pieces for music box. And every possible combination of instruments in between.

As a co-founder/member of the Paradiso - a world famous concert venue in Amsterdam - Houseband, later called VPRO Houseband, Jakob played with many visiting American and British musicians, a.o. Dr. John, Emmy-Lou Harris, Chip Taylor. He co-directed a TV documentary Unbeatable Queens, about two black South African singers in their struggle against racial and gender prejudices.

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