Gabriel Vicéns (born March 16, 1988) is a Puerto Rican

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselv ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

bandleader A bandleader is the leader of a music group such as a rock or pop band or jazz quartet. The term is most commonly used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or ...

, and

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

currently based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Early life and education

Born and raised in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Vicéns began his musical training at the age of 14, and shortly after, he began playing jazz in local clubs. He attended the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, where he earned a Bachelor of Music in Jazz and Caribbean Music studies, graduating summa cum laude as the first guitarist in the program in 2010. Later on, in 2016, he moved to New York City and attended

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

, receiving a Master of Music in 2017. Between 2019 to 2021, Vicéns studied painting at

The Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stud ...

with color-field painter

Pat Lipsky Pat Lipsky is an American painter associated with Lyrical Abstraction and Color Field, Color Field Painting. Education Lipsky grew up in New York City. She graduated with a BFA from Cornell University in 1963, receiving an Master of Fine Arts, MF ...

. In 2022, he received his Doctor of Musical Arts in Jazz Studies and Performance from

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

under the direction of Ray Anderson. He studied guitar with Fernando Mattina and

Paul Bollenback Paul Norris Bollenback (born June 6, 1959) is a jazz guitarist who has appeared on ''Entertainment Tonight'', ''The Tonight Show'', ''The Today Show'', ''Joan Rivers'', and ''Good Morning America''. He has performed with Scott Ambush, Charlie B ...

, and composition with Carlos Cabrer,

Daria Semegen Daria Semegen (born June 27, 1946) is a contemporary American composer of classical music. While she has composed pieces for traditional instruments – her ''Jeux des quatres'' (1970), for example, is scored for clarinet, trombone, cello, and pi ...

, and

Lois V Vierk Lois V. Vierk (born August 4, 1951 in Hammond, Indiana) is a post-minimalist composer who lives in New York City. She received a B.A. degree in piano and ethnomusicology from UCLA in 1974. She then attended Cal Arts, studying composition with ...

Career

Vicéns leads a number of his own groups and has collaborated with many jazz greats, including

Eddie Gómez Edgar Gómez (born October 4, 1944) is a Puerto Rican jazz double bassist, known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio from 1966 to 1977. Biography Gómez moved with his family from Puerto Rico at a young age to New York, where he was raised. ...

, David Sánchez,

Alex Sipiagin Alex Sipiagin (born June 11, 1967) is a Russian jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. Biography Sipiagin was born on June 11, 1967. He moved from Russia to the U.S. in 1990. His first major job in the U.S. was with the Gil Evans Band. He has pl ...

, and

Miguel Zenón Miguel Zenón (born December 30, 1976) is a Puerto Rican alto saxophonist, composer, band leader, music producer, and educator. He is a multiple Grammy Award nominee, and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. He als ...

. At the age of 24, Vicéns became part of the music faculty at the

Interamerican University of Puerto Rico The Inter American University of Puerto Rico (Spanish: ''Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico''; often abbreviated to ''UIPR'' or ''Inter'') is a private Christian university with its main campus in San Germán, Puerto Rico. It also has c ...

where he taught private guitar lessons until 2015. He has released three critically acclaimed albums as a bandleader: Point In Time (2012), Days (2015), and The Way We Are Created (2021). His two later albums were released on

Greg Osby Greg Osby (born August 3, 1960) is an American saxophonist and composer. Biography Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Osby studied at Howard University, then at the Berklee College of Music. He moved to New York City in 1982, where he played with Jaki ...

's influential label, Inner Circle Music. In addition, he is co-leader of the

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its ...

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

group, No Base Trio, formed in 2010 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. No Base Trio has released two highly praised albums under the label Setola di Maiale. Their debut eponymous album was released in 2020 and their second studio album, NBT II, in 2022. Vicéns' work has been featured and reviewed in publications including

DownBeat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...

JazzTimes ''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store. Coverage After a decade of growth ...

All About Jazz ''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...

Jazzwise ''Jazzwise'', launched in 1997, is the UK jazz monthly magazine. ''Jazzwise'' has a broad sub-genre coverage, from jazz, improv, hard bop, and jazz-rock to bebop and classic jazz, and also covers jazz crossover, including jazz-funk, jazz hip-h ...

Musica Jazz ''Musica Jazz'' is an Italian monthly magazine specializing in jazz. Founded in 1945 by journalist Gian Carlo Testoni, it is one of the world's longest-running jazz magazines, publishing reviews and news articles covering the jazz genre; it once p ...

Jazz Journal ''Jazz Journal'' is a British jazz magazine established in 1946 by Sinclair Traill (1904–1981). It was first published in London under the title ''Pick Up'', which Traill founded as a locus for serious jazz criticism in Britain.Roberta Freund Sc ...

, Jazz Inside,

El Nuevo Día ''El Nuevo Día'' (English: ''The New Day'') is the newspaper with the largest circulation in Puerto Rico. It was founded in 1909 in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and today it is a subsidiary of GFR Media. Its headquarters are in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. ...

El Vocero ''El Vocero de Puerto Rico'' is a Puerto Rican free newspaper that is published in San Juan. Published since 1974, ''El Vocero'' was at first the third of the four largest Puerto Rico newspapers, trailing '' El Mundo'' and ''El Nuevo Día'' and ...

, and Fundación Nacional para la Cultura Popular.

Discography

As leader

* ''The Way We Are Created'' (Inner Circle Music, 2021) * ''Days'' (Inner Circle Music, 2015) * ''Point In Time'' (2012)

As co-leader

* ''No Base Trio - NBT II'' (Setola di Maiale, 2022) * ''No Base Trio'' (Setola di Maiale, 2020)

As sideman

With Slavorican Assembly * ''Intercosmic'' (Riverboat Records, 2022) With Pablo Campos * ''Enfoque'' (2019) With Jonathan Suazo * ''Each Other'' (2019) * ''Vital'' (2014) * ''Extracts of a Desire'' (2012) With Andre Carvalho * Outside in Music, Vol. 3 - ''Live at Pinch Recording'' (Outside in Music, 2019) With Pasha Karchevsky * ''Hope'' (Inner Circle Music, 2018) With Fernando García * ''Behique'' (Sunnyside Records, 2023) * ''Guasábara Puerto Rico'' (ZOHO Music, 2018) With Joan Torres' All Is Fused * ''Embrace Form'' (2023) * ''Revolution'' (2019) * ''Of the Musical'' (2016) * ''The Beginning'' (2014) * ''Before'' (2012) With 5 Esquinas * ''Tamarindo'' (2014) With SM Quinteto * ''Historias, Cuentos y Canciones'' (2012)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vicens, Gabriel 1988 births Living people People from Guaynabo, Puerto Rico Puerto Rican jazz musicians Puerto Rican guitarists Puerto Rican composers Jazz guitarists American jazz composers 21st-century American guitarists 21st-century American composers