"PEDRO MENENDEZ - PETERS SONGS" Pedro Menéndez is a brilliant composer and multinstrumentalist (piano, guitar, winds, bandoneon, voice) wellknown for his unique and personal composition style blending jazz, Argentinian and Latin American Folk (tango, candombe, chacarera, zamba, bossa nova) and contemporary clasical influences. Distinguished by a prolific instrumental discography (13 works), on “PETERS SONGS”, PEDRO MENENDEZ shows a different facet and goes deeper into the field of lyrics. Mystery of nature, human essence, cultural, social and political roots of South American continent are poetically reflected with beauty, simplicity and humanity. As a composer, MENENDEZ amazes with an incredibly rich work on harmonies and vocal arrangements and shows himself as an unique eclectic artist full of valuable proposals and restless quests on South American alternative musical expressions. Part of the material included on the CD “PETER´S SONGS” (Contemporaneo Art Music 2010) was originally composed for the documentary film “Querida Mara, Cartas de un viaje por la Patagonia”, an Argentinian /German co-poduction directed by Argentinian well-known Director Carlos Echeverría. “Querida Mara, Cartas de un viaje por la Patagonia” (“Dear Mara, Letters from a journey around the Patagonia”), has been recently premiered on distinguished national movie theaters (Centro Cultural Gral. San Martín, Malba Museum) as well as on internacional European festivals. With an extensive international live performance career destined to keep growing (Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Paraguay, US, Canada, France, Germany, Norway and soon India), PETER´S SONGS is one of the live musical projects that PEDRO MENENDEZ has been recently featuring with great success. After the US premiere of PETERS SONGS at SXSW 2009, 2011 will see Pedro Menendez return to SXSW for fourth consecutive year featuring his projects PETER'S SONGS and PEDRO MENENDEZ FUSION ENSEMBLE (Tour CANADIAN MUSIC FEST - SXSW 2011). MORE MUSICAL PROJECTS OF PEDRO MENÉNDEZ: PEDRO MENENDEZ FUSION ENSEMBLE (www.sonicbids.com/pedromenendezensemble / www.myspace.com/pedromenendezfusion) PEDRO MENENDEZ JAZZTANGO ENSEMBLE (www.myspace.com/pedromenendezjazztangoensamble) PEDRO MENENDEZ - ZONA TANGO (www.sonicbids.com/zonatango / www.myspace.com/zonatangobuenosaires) PEDRO MENENDEZ - PROYECTO BUENOS AIRES (www.myspace.com/proyectobuenosaires) ABOUT PEDRO MENENDEZ´s BIOGRAPHY: Pedro Menendez was born in Buenos Aires in 1957. He has been dedicated to the music since he was 7 years old. He studied with professors like the worldwide known Oscar Aleman ( Josephine Baker's jazz guitarist), Arturo Schneider (Astor Piazzolla´s flutist) and the contemporary classical guitarist Miguel Angel Girollet, among others. He also attended the composition career at the UCA. He has recorded 17 discographic works with compositions of his own with the participation of well-known musicians like Osvaldo Fattoruso on drums (latin jazz Band 'Opa'), Rodolfo Mederos & Marcelo Nissinman on bandoneon, percussionist Rubén Rada, musicians from the Colón Theatre orchestra, among others. He has performed internationally in US, Canada, Norway, Germany, Spain, France and Brazil, including among the most recent shows: CANADIAN MUSIC FEST 2011 / March 9-13, 2011 (Toronto, ON, Canada) SXSW 2011 / March 16-19, 2011 (Austin, TX, USA) SXSW Music Festival 2010, 2009, 2008 (Austin, TX, USA) CANADIAN MUSIC WEEK 2009, Toronto, ON, Canada (March 2009) SXSW Music Festival & Conference 2009 (Austin, TX, USA, March 2009) DART MUSIC International Day & Night Shows (Austin, TX, March 2009) BRAZIL MUSICA & ARTES + International Guests (Austin, TX, March 2009) FESTIVAL DE INVERNO SESC RIO 2008 (Petrópolis, Teresópolis & Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro, BRASIL, July 2008) SXSW Music Festival & Conference 2008 (Austin, TX, USA, March 2008) Rhizome Collective International Show (Austin, TX, USA, March 2008) KUT FM - Live Recording Show (Austin, TX, US, March 2008) Troughout his career he has played on numerous local artistic, cultural venues and festivals, including "Buenos Aires Jazz & other Musics" International Festival, "Mar del Jazz" Festival, Centro Nacional de Música, Casa del Fondo Nacional de la Cultura, Auditorio del Pilar - Recoleta, Avenida Theater, among many others. He has also performed as sessionist together with many other distinguished musicians of the Argentinian scene, like Luis Salinas, Agustín Pereyra Lucena, Guillermo Reuter (2004 SGAE Award), Daniel 'Pipi' Piazzolla, Bossa N´Stones, etc. In the field of contemporary chamber music, he has written several pieces including a concert for Vibraphone and Strings dedicated to the Argentinian Soloist Daniel Serale (premiered on the International Percussion Festival of Patagonia, Argentina, 2006), a concert for Marimba dedicated to the Mexican well-known Soloist Javier Nandayapa, a work of 20 pieces for Piano based on Latin American rythmics (‘Viaje por Latinoamérica’/Voyage through Latin America’ Book I / Book II) and a concert for Guitar and Orchestra. He has composed incidental music for television, theatre and cinema (Argentina and the Munich School of Cinema). Since 1986 he is the Artistic Director of Contemporaneo Art Music, an Argentinian Record Label dedicated to genres as tango, jazz, crossover, folk, world and contemporary classical music (www.contemporaneomusic.com)