It is my firm belief that artists should not limit themselves to the paradigm creators. As such, I continue to play and perform in conjunction to my activities in composition. I am active as an oboist since 2012, having completed a Minor’s at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag under the tutelage of Remco de Vries. With the oboe, I’ve had the rare opportunities to perform in youth orchestras and bands all over the United States, and have won the 2016 New World School of the Arts Concerto Competition, performing the Strauss oboe concerto.
Beyond oboe, I have experience performing on jazz piano and the Venezuelan cuatro, a four-stringed guitar used extensively in folklore.
Warekes [wa.‘re.kes] is a loanword from the Chayma language of Eastern Venezuela. It is the plural of wareke, “frog”, specifically, a small frog that lives by rivers and streams. As the sky darkens and rain begins to fall, the frogs gather by bodies of water and begin to sing in a simple yet beautiful counterpoint. It is a song of joy, and it is sung by all.
As such, Warekes is an international collective based in the Hague focused on creating a new Folklore without borders. Our work is built around themes of the transformation of tradition in modernity and raising awareness of sociopolitical problems in marginalized communities from around the world.
From its founding in 2019 by Martín Mayo and Josefina Koloski, Warekes has been about building connections and unity through music. Initially, our repertoire comprised innovative arrangements of folk songs the world over, incorporating classical and contemporary elements within it.
Since 2020, we have shifted our musical praxis away from performance of existing material and towards the creation of a new folklore, personal to our communities while still relatable to all. We distilled the ingredients of folklore into three general parameters – community, environment, and ritual – and have developed our music around these ideas. In this endeavor, we continue to pay homage to our sources and seek to bring attention to marginalized communities via their traditions by introducing them to new audiences.