Joan Soriano | |
---|---|
Birth name | Juan Bienvenido Severino Soriano |
Born | Monte Plata, Dominican Republic | February 23, 1972
Genres | Bachata, Latin |
Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, performance artist |
Instruments | Vocals, guitar |
Years active | 1982–present |
Labels | iASO Records |
Website | www |
Joan Soriano (born February 23, 1972) is a Dominican bachata singer and guitarist from the Dominican Republic. His style is a blend of modern with traditional bachata. Since the 1980s, Joan's guitar and arrangements have graced many hit bachatas by other artists, and since 2008, he has begun to make a name for himself internationally. [1]
Soriano was born the seventh of fifteen children. "Born in the rural countryside near Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, Joan Soriano fashioned his first guitar from a tin can and fishing line and has never looked back." [2] He created a family band with his siblings nicknamed "Los Candes," becoming a young star in the neighborhood. [3] After Soriano mastered the style, the then 13-year-old traveled to Santo Domingo and started working as a session musician. [4] Soriano's guitar playing has the clean, feathery sound typical of bachata music.
In 2010, Soriano released El Duque de la Bachata with iASO Records. The album was recorded live in Santo Domingo and NYC studios by iASO producer Benjamin de Menil. [5] The album won the best World Beat Album of 2011 at the Indie Acoustic Project awards. [5]
In 2011, Soriano, Aventura, and Mochy y Alexandra collaborated to produce a DVD breakdown of bachata. Released by iASO Records, the Bachata Breakdown En Vivo video and accompanying CD demonstrates bachata instrument by instrument, using the basic rhythms of Derecho, Majao, and Mambo. [6]
In 2012, Soriano released the album La Familia Soriano, a collaborative project of Joan playing alongside his siblings produced by iASO Records. [7] It debuted at #3 on the Billboard Tropical album chart. [8]
In 2018, the album Bachata Haiti was released as the first recordings of Creole language bachata. The album features music sung in both Creole and Spanish and a group of Haitian-Dominican artists led by Joan Soriano. The project was developed as an alternative to media attention focusing on conflict when considering relations between the people of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. [9]
The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with Haiti, making Hispaniola one of only two Caribbean islands, along with Saint Martin, that is shared by two sovereign states. The Dominican Republic is the second-largest nation in the Antilles by area at 48,671 square kilometers (18,792 sq mi), and third-largest by population, with approximately 10.8 million people, of whom approximately 3.3 million live in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city. The official language of the country is Spanish.
Aventura is a Dominican-American bachata group that broke into the mainstream with their 2002 hit "Obsesión". With a lineup comprising Romeo Santos, Henry Santos, Lenny Santos, and Max Santos, they are regarded as one of the most influential Latin groups of all time. The group were integral to the evolution of bachata music and are the pioneers of the modern bachata sound. Aventura released five studio albums in a decade, spawning many top 10 hits like "Cuando Volverás", "Un Beso", "Mi Corazoncito", "Los Infieles", "El Perdedor", "Por Un Segundo", "Dile Al Amor", among others. They have sold out many arenas including the world famous Madison Square Garden. Aventura has been nominated for awards such as American Music Awards, the Latin Grammy Awards, Billboard Latin Music Awards, and Premio Lo Nuestro. Aventura is one of the most internationally recognized Latin groups of the last two decades and frequently refer to themselves as "K.O.B.", or "Kings of Bachata".
Dominicans are people of the Dominican Republic. This identification may be historical, cultural, legal, or residential. For most Dominicans, several of these connections exist and are collectively the source of being Dominican.
Juan Luis Guerra Seijas, is a Dominican musician, singer, composer, and record producer. He has sold 30 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling Latin music artists. Throughout his career, he has won numerous awards including 21 Latin Grammy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Latin Billboard Music Awards. Guerra won 3 Latin Grammy Awards in 2010, including Album of the Year. In 2012, he won the Latin Grammy Award for Producer of the Year.
Bachata is a genre of Latin American music that originated in the Dominican Republic in the first half of the 20th century. It is a fusion of southwestern European influences, mainly Spanish guitar music, with some remnants of indigenous Taino and Sub Saharan African musical elements, representative of the cultural diversity of the Dominican population.
Antony Santos a.k.a. El Mayimbe is a Dominican singer, songwriter, musician, and producer. He is one of the top-selling Bachata artists of all time. He is known as one of the pioneers of modern Bachata in the early 1990s with his role in redefining the genre to include romantic lyrics, poppy guitar licks, and implementation of new instruments such as the piano and saxophone.
Yoskar "El Prabu" Sarante was a prominent Dominican bachata singer.
Zacarías Ferreíra is a Dominican singer, songwriter, and musician. He is a Bachata artist known worldwide for his hits such as "Es Tan Dificil", "Asesina", "La Mejor de Todas", "Mañana en tu Olvido", "Amiga Veneno", "La Avispa" among others. He is one of the most representative voices in bachata. He is known as "La Voz de la Ternura" because of his soft and melodic voice.
Frank Reyes born June 4, 1969, he is one of the best known bachata artists, famous throughout Latin America. He was born in the town of Tenares in the Dominican Republic. Reyes discovered his musical talent when he was a young boy. He and his brothers started their own musical group and had great singing talent. When he was only 12 years old, he decided to travel to Santo Domingo where he worked hard and had many jobs, always dreaming of having his own business. Because he had a beautiful voice he became very successful over the years.
Originally from the small country town of La Galana, near San Francisco de Macoris, Edilio Paredes is one of the most influential figures in the development of the Dominican music tradition of bachata. In a career now spanning over 40 years, Edilio has arranged and recorded lead guitar on well over a thousand tracks, accompanying some of bachata's most well known singers. His style helped influence the emergence of bachata from its predecessor: bolero.
Fausto Ramón Sepúlveda, known by his stage name Fausto Rey, is a Dominican singer.
Luis Rafael Valdez Vargas is a Dominican musician, singer and composer. He became involved in popular music after meeting a local musician who taught him how to play guitar.
The Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo was the annexation and merger of then-independent Republic of Spanish Haiti into the Republic of Haiti, that lasted twenty-two years, from 9 February 1822 to 27 February 1844. The territory functioned as a self-governing entity with Dominican soldiers as overseers until the eventual independence from Haiti. What Haitians called "unification" was designed to protect their country from re-enslavement via the Spanish side of the island; but the Dominicans saw it as an invasion. This invasion sparked a Dominican movement for national independence, which was attained in February 1844.
Adam Taub is a documentary film director from Greeley, Colorado whose films include La Quinceañera, Don Angelo, and El Duque de la Bachata. His film La Quinceañera won the 2007 award for Best Documentary at the Angelus Student Film Festival in Hollywood, California and Best Documentary at the San Diego Latino Film Festival. In 2009, he released a film project entitled El Duque de la Bachata with Joan Soriano, a bachata and merengue musician from the Dominican Republic.
Francisco Hilario Henríquez y Carvajal was a doctor, lawyer, writer, educator and politician from the Dominican Republic, who served as president just prior to the US occupation of the country.
Anthony "Romeo" Santos is a American singer and songwriter best known as the lead member and vocalist of the bachata group Aventura. In 2002, the song "Obsesión" reached number one in Italy for 16 consecutive weeks. He released several albums with Aventura before the group broke up. Since then, Santos has embarked on a solo career which has spawned seven number one songs on the Hot Latin Songs chart and sixteen number ones on the Tropical Songs chart.
While the Dominican Republic is known for shaping merengue and bachata music, its musicians have also melded these influences into the early development of salsa music amongst the Latin community of New York City in the early 1960s. A major development in those initial days of salsa occurred when Johnny Pacheco, a Dominican-born musician living in New York City, teamed with partner Jerry Masucci to create Fania Records in 1964. They started selling records from the trunk of cars on the streets of Spanish Harlem, signing up young artists, creating new sounds, and eventually having hit records. Over the next 15 years, Fania Records helped define the sound, culture, and language associated with the salsa genre, a musical movement that arose partly from the unavailability in the United States of music produced in Cuba.
Luis Díaz Portorreal, best known as Luis Días, was a musician, composer and performer of popular music born in the Dominican Republic.
White Dominicans are Dominicans of predominant European descent. They represent 16.1% of the Dominican Republic's population, according to the last population census in which race was queried. The majority of white Dominicans are descendants from the first European settlers to arrive in Hispaniola and have ancestry of the Spanish and French who settled in the island during colonial times, as well as the Portuguese who settled in the 17th and 18th centuries. Many others also descend from Italians, Dutchmen, Germans, Hungarians, Americans and other nationalities who have migrated between the 19th and 20th centuries. Similar to the rest of the Hispanic Caribbean, the majority of Spaniards who settled the Dominican Republic came from southern Spain, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, the latter of whom are of partial North African Guanche descent.
Haitians in the Dominican Republic or Haitian Dominicans are residents or citizens of the Dominican Republic of Haitian descent. Since the early 20th century, Haitians have made up the largest immigrant population in the Dominican Republic.