Borrowing its name from a Brazilian wild sugar-apple, Biribá Union features Mike Block (cello, vocals), Christylez Bacon (beatbox, guitar, rhymes) and Patricia Ligia (electric bass, vocals). The trio met through Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop, initially bonding over their shared love of Brazilian music. They quickly began co-writing new music that draws on the freestyle theatrics of hip-hop and Go-go music; the effortless beauty of Brazilian forró and choro; the earthiness of American roots music, and the improvisational spontaneity of jazz.
Mike Block, a Grammy Award-winning cellist, singer, and composer, has been a member of the Silkroad Ensemble for nearly twenty years. He is hailed by Gramophone Magazine as “brave” and “intriguing” and Yo-Yo Ma calls him “the ideal musician for the 21st century”. Block is a director for Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop.
Christylez Bacon is a Grammy-nominated songwriter, storyteller, rapper, beat-boxer, and guitarist. His wide curiosity has led him to collaborate with Hindustani, Arabic, and Brazilian musicians. The first hip-hop artist to be featured at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, he has also composed for and performed with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.
Patricia Ligia is an electric bass player and composer from Montevideo, Uruguay. She has toured with Colombian pop superstar Karol G's band, performing on Saturday Night Live, NPR's Tiny Desk, and The Today Show. Ligia is also co-founder of Mestizas, a band that fuses flamenco and jazz with folkloric music from Latin American and the Caribbean. For her, Uruguayan culture makes it feel “easy to be alive, spread joy and share music.”
