MEDIA RELEASE
29 May 2015
Byron Bay duo create music history in the Caribbean
Two Byron Bay musicians are headed for Cuba to create music history.
Producer and keyboardist Jake Savona (aka Mista Savona), audio lecturer Eric Coelho and a
small team of Australian musicians and filmmakers will record and document the world’s
first-ever collaboration between Jamaican and Cuban musicians in Havana this June.
Coelho, who teaches studio production and live sound at SAE Creative Media Institute in
Byron Bay, said he was thrilled to be play a part in creating an outstanding and original
album that showcased some of the most celebrated, talented and dynamic musicians in the
world.
“Despite the close proximity of Cuba and Jamaica, and being two of the world’s most
influential musical nations, there’s been very little collaboration between these two islands,”
Coelho said.
“The project stems from our dream to create an incredible album that explores, develops
and records new styles and sounds that have never been shared with international
audiences – and to film every moment of it,” he said.
Coelho will be assuming the roles of sound engineer and Spanish interpreter during the trip.
He said the landmark project had secured the involvement of some of the world’s most
influential artists, including:
• Jamaican rhythm and production duo Sly and Robbie, who have produced and
recorded with Gilberto Gil, Santana, Grace Jones, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and
Sinead O’Connor
• Leroy Sibbles, described as the “greatest all-round talent in reggae history”
• One of the most important Cuban percussionists of all time, Jose Luis Quintana
(aka Changuito)
• Jamaican hand-drummer, percussionist and singer Bongo Herman, who has
recorded alongside Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff
• Rising star Randy Valentine who has enjoyed international fame since collaborating
with Major Lazer.
In another world-first, the album will be sung in Spanish, English and Jamaican Patois.
The artists will spend eight days composing and improvising at Havana’s famed Egrem
studios during June. The album will be mixed and mastered in Australia.
Coelho, who also works as a sound engineer with famed Australian music outfits such as the
Melbourne Ska Orchestra, Bustamento and Wolfmother, said the project demonstrated the
power of music to affect cultural and social change.
“I’m really excited about sharing the outcomes of this project with students at SAE
campuses in Australia and the United States,” he said.
“It will be amazing for me to talk through our experiences with the students – to
demonstrate all the production phases involved in bringing something like this to fruition,
right down to how we mic up someone’s drum kit.
“I’ll have footage and photographs that tell a story, from concept to completion and
everything in between.
“At SAE, we’re all about real-world, hands-on education. It doesn’t get more real than this.”
Coelho, who will be playing guitar with Melbourne Ska Orchestra at the Sierra Nevada World
Music Festival in June immediately following the Caribbean collaboration, said he planned to
run workshops and master classes at the SAE Byron Bay campus on his return. He will also
be guest lecturing at the SAE campuses in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
“This is history in the making. It’s a story that needs to be recorded and shared.”
Coelho and his peers are running a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign at
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1424379793/havana-meets-kingston-thealbum-and-documentary
ENDS
------ENDS-----About SAE
SAE Australia offers Higher Education and VET education opportunities to more than 2,500
students, including certificate, diploma and degrees across the following major fields of
study; audio production, film production, games design, games programming, animation,
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institutes, with 53 campuses in 27 countries. SAE is a part of the Navitas group. Further
information about SAE is available at www.sae.edu.au.
About Navitas
Navitas is an Australian global education leader providing pre-university and university
programs, English language courses, migrant education and settlement services, creative
media education, student recruitment, professional development and corporate training
services to more than 80,000 students across a network of over 100 colleges and campuses
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available at www.navitas.com.
For further information contact:
Cathy Tobin
Corporate Affairs Manager, SAE
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0498 004 023