Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
Matthew Andrae - Singer, Songwriter, Guitarist
Matthew is one of Santa Fe’s not so hidden treasures! A great guitarist, serious singer and deep songwriter, don’t miss your chance to hear Matthew in a real listening environment. He is as good as anyone in the business! - gigsantafe.com/bruce dunlap
Pop
Hailing from Santa Fe, New Mexico, this young powerful artist is breaking the mold of pop music. His voice is like velvet, lyrics are truly poetic, and the music is absolutely moving. (RATING *****) - ciano maés
"Imagine a Cat Stevens song chart, a Stevie Wonder vocal attack, and the voluptuous vision of the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, splice in some funky flamenco guitar riffs and, on several tunes, the witty arrnangements of a Lyle Lovett...not caged in by a pop formula...Andrae reaches for the ineffable bittersweet counucopia of experience that life presents." - Stephen Powell
Matthew Andrae (awal.com/artists/MatthewAndrae)
is a singer-songwriter I met in Santa Fe. After an interview, at a hotel my interviewee said, you should meet Matthew Andrae and a few minutes later, in he walked. He is a wonderful Native American singer-songwriter. You can listen to some of his music and learn more about him at the site above. As a child growing up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, home to the Atomic Bomb, Matthew found the curious atmosphere of conformity ran against the grain of his creative individuality, and his roots as a Jicarilla Apache Indian. ("In hindsight, it was awesome.") At age 12, his parents took him to a José Feliciano concert. They were appalled by the raw, exploding high-voltage vitality of the scene, remembers Matthew, "But I was exhilarated. I said: "THAT'S what I'm going to do!" His parents bought him a guitar. He started playing gigs at 13 and has never stopped. Throughout his formative years as a musician, Matthew studied classical guitar at the New England Conservatory (however briefly), the Berklee College of Music and Bowdoin College (summer performance intensives). But he was drawn to epic rock classics and all music representing and expressing particular nuances of culture and emotion...from Genesis and Pink Floyd to Donald fagen and Pat Metheny...Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson...Classical guitar to American Hip-Hop and the tribal rhythms of his American Indian roots. "There is beauty in simplicity - and that simplicity of gesture is a beautiful thing in guitar. I'm intrigued by the context of music. To understand music, you need to know what context it was created within, and you must understand the humor and tragedy of the times."
- Jeff Hutner
Discography
1998:"Jicarilla Apache"
2000:"Burning"
2002:"Matthew Andre"
2006:"TBA" coming soon!!!
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
When Matthew Andrae stepped up to the mic in front of a television audience of 12 million people at the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City Utah, he made history;
"The World's Largest Simultaneous Prayer for Peace".
The twelve million people from around the world had learned his peace anthem: "The Next Country Over" and were ready to sing it with him.
When they did, it truly was a sound heard 'round the world.
Recent gigs:
National Public Radio interview
PBS Special; "The World's Largest Concert" taped live at the Winter Olympic Games
World Expo, Hanover Germany
Unisong (writing group member)
CBS Movie of the Week "The Staircase"
As a peaceful global citizen, Matthew has done his part, but it is the battlefields of the heart where Matthew is planning his meeting with destiny.
Without putting too fine a point on it, Matthew Andrae is fond of writing insanely happy love songs tempered with the soul of a deeply introverted poet.
An adoptee, Matthew has fought to keep a sense of reality and place here on earth. The result of this struggle has led him to the very fringes of the universe of human experience in his music.
Songs like "Satellite Fall" casually sneak up on the listener and ask: "if you were to live a long time and if souls travel, then could your long dead relatives surprise you with a visit from interstellar space one of these fine days?"
"Science fiction love songs" ...and it would be no surprise to learn that Matthew was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico; home of the atomic bomb.
Matthew was classically trained and attended the Berklee School of Music and the New England Conservatory (however briefly). His approach to guitar is like nobody else on the planet.
Imagine you are watching someone play guitar and sing, but you are hearing bass lines and a percussion section... Where is all that sound coming from?
In the hands of Matthew Andrae, (he is using anywhere from two to all five fingers to play bass lines, rhythm and percussion) the guitar is a completely different animal.
Matthew Andrae has quietly continued to write and perform for a growing legion of near fanatical followers who believe that it simply doesn't get any better than this.
Yes, Matthew is a huge caliber guitarist who makes lesser guitarists run for the hills and, yes, he has an unusual voice (he sounds like Tracy Chapman might have sounded if she had been Stevie Wonder's brother), but if there is anything that really sets Matthew Andrae apart from the crowd it has to be his songwriting.
The impression you get from watching him on stage is similar to what a fly on the wall might experience at a hotel room before the show as the superstar delivers a truly heart-felt acoustic version of their hit song to nobody. This is not the souped up version, the one with the band and the back-up singers, this is the pure version, and the one that made the song come alive in the first place.
The audio tracks on his website: www.matthewandrae.com only hint at the vast landscape of images and moods that are out there for you to discover in Matthew's works.
Q: Why isn't this guy the most famous guy in the world?
Born into the white clan of the Jicarilla Apache Indians, "Daren Ross Castillo" was faced with major changes before the age of two. An act of violence abruptly resulted in Daren being put up for adoption. Daren was placed in a foster home, taught his first words (in Spanish), and re-named.
One year later, the Andrae family, scientists for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, adopted that child and re-re-named him "Matthew James Andrae".
After "considerable challenges of bonding", Matthew was found to be fond of guitar. That discovery changed everything.
Matthew Andrae is now a solo musician who collaborates in over 250 performances per year with others from the music, dance and film worlds.
Matthew is best known for his song: "The Next Country Over" which was the finale song of a PBS special: "The World's Largest Concert" in which twelve million people from all over the world learned and sang the chorus of the song along with the broadcast.
Links
