LJ

I was born in Caracas, Venezuela. I am the youngest brother from my family. My older brother was an accomplished classical piano player, next one is an accomplished Geographer and my sister lives in Spain and she is excellent in PR. We all were surrounded by music at early age, and I started playing percussion instruments when I was 5 years old. When I was 19 years old I started play drums regularly. Soon I became involved with Prog-Rock bands in my hometown; one of those bands called Parthenon recently produced a CD, some of the songs are material recorded in rehearsals when I was playing with them. I lived in Caracas until I graduated with a major in Biology. After that, in the early eighties I moved to Maracay, Venezuela, where I tried to make a living as a drummer on a Prog-Rock band that have gained local and international recognition called Equlibrio Vital. They have two CDs out where I played in some of the songs. By 1990 I started graduate college in Maracay and graduated with a Master in Statistics in 1993. Soon after that I supposedly quitted drumming (or at least I believed that!) and landed a job as Faculty in a university in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. Since musical habits are difficult to quit, I returned to drumming in 1995, but playing Jazz and Latin Music that time, I played Big Band with Barisi Jazz Ensemble and Traditional and Latin Jazz with Churuata Jazz Project, that performed at two of the Barquisimeto Jazz Festivals and Salsa with Orquesta "La Playa" under the leadership of Eduardo Betancourt. I divorced in 1998 and remarried in 2001. In 2002 I was admitted in the Statistics Department at NC State University as Graduate Student where I completed my Master Degree in Statistics in 2004 and soon after that I landed a job there. I was unable to play drums when I was in graduate school but I started again in 2004. Now I am living in Rochester, MN. The music that you listen in my profile is a home recording from a band where I was playing when I was living in Raleigh called "The Rare Grooves". Now here in Rochester, MN I am proudly supporting local musicians. I was called to collaborate once again with the most recent EqV projects.