CMC Sessions: Inspiration & Influences with Erick Peralta

CMC Sessions: Inspiration & Influences

Spark your musical imagination with CMC faculty as they delve into stories about the inspiration and influences that have guided them as professional musicians and teachers at CMC. CMC Sessions: Inspiration & Influences is an eight-part on-line series hosted by CMC Cultural Traditions and Winds/Brass Departments, providing up-close and personal stories about the potent influences and galvanizing experiences that make up the "musical life." Told through compelling demonstrations, musical examples, and creative tips, the sessions will provide participants with inspiration on their musical journeys.

Meet these talented faculty members:

Erick Peralta, Dialects of 20th Century Jazz Piano

Thursday, June 8, 2023 at 7pm (PT)

Online via Zoom

FREE

The jazz tradition and its pioneers have greatly influenced Erick Peralta’s musical persona, improvisations, and expressions over the years—cand ontinue to enrich and shape his musical journey. Erick will present a succinct exploration of various, iconic jazz pianists from the 20th century, observing different components of each pianist’s personal improvisational language. Erick will dive into specific artists’ improvisations, breaking down and demonstrating excerpts of their improvisational languages. He’ll share the elements you can draw from these musical pioneers, and how to implement the elements into your own musical language.

This event will be conducted online via video conferencing. RSVP to receive the link to join, emailed prior to the start of the discussion.

About the Artist:

Erick Peralta is a versatile musician with a special appreciation for all styles of music, permitting him to keep open ears for the development of music, while still keeping in mind tradition and history. From an early age, Erick was exposed to various styles of music thanks to his father, such as Latin-Pop, Afro-Peruvian, and Afro Cuban music. Classically trained from 6 years old, he began playing professionally in the year 2005, at the age of 15, then branching out in the San Francisco Bay Area with various Jazz, Rock, Latin Jazz, and Salsa groups. Following his studies at Community Music Center and the Jazzschool in Berkeley, he’s had jazz studies with late pianist Ray Santisi, Laszlo Gardony, Danilo Perez, Tia Fuller, Ed Tomassi, David Santoro, as well as with Papo Lucca from Sonora Ponceña, and Oscar Hernandez of SHO. Now a graduate from the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Erick currently resides in the city of San Francisco. Past notable performances include having worked with multi-Grammy winners Alejandro Sanz, Luis Enrique, and Susana Baca; as well as working with artists such as Pedrito Martinez, John Santos, Juan Medrano “Cotito”, La India, Tito Nieves, Bayonics, and Grupo 5, and more.

Erick has taken part performing in various festivals and venues, such as San Jose Jazz Festival, Latin Grammy Awards, Fillmore Jazz Festival, the Independent, The Regency Ballroom, The Fillmore, the Blue Note Napa, San Francisco International Salsa Festival, Berklee Performance Center, Boston Convention Center, the Beantown Jazz Festival, and many more.

Along with performing, Erick works in composing and arranging in Jazz, Pop, and Latin music. Currently he is working on several projects, including his own project featuring original jazz compositions for various ensembles.

Always a strong advocate for music education, Erick forms part of the faculty at Community Music Center, as well as serves as a private music teacher in his home studio, teaching piano in styles such as Jazz, Latin, R&B, and Pop, as well as music theory, composition, and arranging.

People who are interested in this workshop can dive deeper by exploring private lessons and group classes and ensembles at CMC.