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Personnel
of the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project
                                                         

cuatrit3.gif (13792 bytes)  Founding members
Juan Sotomayor, principal researcher, general manager
William Cumpiano,  archivist, coordinator and webmaster
Wilfredo Echevarría, media expert, director of documentary videos and graphic arts

Members
David Morales, researcher, resident expert in jíbaro music
Myriam Fuentes, specialist in media, editing and preparation of educational materials
Carlos Flores,
coordinator of the Cuatro Project in Chicago, Illinois
Support Personnel PR and USA
Participating Consultants PR and USA
En español

 

Juan Sotomayor is co-founder of the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project. His function is to conduct and collect oral history interviews; investigator of published and archived sources; collector of recovered photographs and creator of an extensive archive of new photographs; and finally, author of a historic chronology of the cuatro, its music and craft.

Juan Sotomayor was born in New York City in 1940 of Puerto Rican parents. Until his recent retirement, Juan was a prize-winning photographer living in New Jersey and working on the New York Times staff since 1966. He is also an accomplished guitarist and cuatrista, having been a member of several professional musical groups, one of which recorded for the Ansonia label in 1957. Currently, he lives in Moca, Puerto Rico and is devoted full-time to the Cuatro Project, completing work on an upcoming textbook on the national instrument, and soon to commence work on a series of teaching methods for the instrument.

 CONTACT JUAN SOTOMAYOR

 


Juan Sotomayor converses with distinguished cuatristas Ray Vázquez and Neftalí Ortiz during a pause in the filming of a documentary produced by the Cuatro Project.

William Cumpiano  is co-founder of the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project. To date, his function has been as organizer and transcriber of the graphic and textual materials, and as facilitator, conceptualizer and coordinator of the project.

    William Richard Cumpiano was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1945. He has lived in Western Massachusetts for the last eighteen years. After graduating with a bachelor in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in New York City in 1968, he worked for several years in New York as a professional furniture designer. During this time he met master guitarmaker Michael Gurian, under whom he apprenticed as a guitarmaker. In 1974, he opened his own guitarmaking studio in Massachusetts. He has been been a professional guitarmaker and teacher of his craft since then, currently in Northampton, Massachusetts.
     In 1992, he founded the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project with Juan Sotomayor.
     He was also a founding board member and president of the Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (ASIA), an international professional society. He lectured before the society's conventions and also at conventions of the Guild of American Luthiers (GAL). He is co-author of GUITARMAKING: Tradition and Technology, acclaimed as the principal textbook in his field. His work has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects and the Smithsonian Institute. He has taught cuatromaking to young Puerto Rican artisans under grants originating form the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) through various regional arts organizations.

William's guitarmaking webpage here.
William's email here.

 

Cuatro Project coordinator William Cumpiano  is a professional instrument maker and author of a leading textbook on guitar making.

Wilfredo Echevarría  is an expert in media communications, who has directed numerous important projects for the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project, including the video documentary NUESTRO CUATRO, Volumes 1 and 2, and a series of short features. He has also produced a series of posters and graphical materials announcing many of the Project's live events. You can communicate with Wilfredo Echevarria here.

 


Wilfredo Echevarría is an award-winning producer of educational programming on television and a director of video documentaries, including thos summarizing the findings of the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project.

David Morales is a foremost expert in the field of vintage jíbaro music recordings, and owner of one of the largest--if not the largest--private collections of early and modern recordings of traditional Puerto Rican music. His seminal research on the lives and work of some of Puerto Rico's most admired traditional singers includes an important work on the history and career of the great poet-singer Chuíto el de Cayey--until that point, a life shrouded in mystery and destined for oblivion-- published in the annual journal La Canción Popular. You can contact David Morales here.

David Morales graduated from Bowdoin College in 1997. Over the next three years he served as a Budget Analyst for the House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways & Means, where he managed a significant part of the state’s budget and advised the Committee on policy and legislative matters. From 2000 to 2001, David Morales served as an adviser to the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives on health care policy and state finance.

In 2001, David Morales became the Executive Director of the nation’s first prescription drug insurance plan for seniors - Prescription Advantage. At Prescription Advantage, David Morales oversaw a $140M operation, managed over 70 employees and served over 90,000 insured individuals.

Extremely dedicated to community activities, David Morales is the founder and past President of the El Jolgorio de Massachusetts, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering leadership, civic engagement and educational attainment among Latino youth.

In January of 2003, David Morales accepted a position as Senior Adviser to the President of the Massachusetts Senate, advising the President on policy matters, including state finances, health care and legislative issues.

In 2007 he became part of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s advisory staff.

David Morales lives in Lynn, Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife Samanda Morales and their son Anthony Cesar Morales.
 


Cultural researcher David Morales accompanying the distinguished traditional singer, Luz Celenia Tirado, during a September 2005 event in the Museo de San Juan sponsored by the Cuatro Project celebrating the premiere of the Cuatro Project's documentary "La Décima Borinqueña".

 

Myriam Fuentes is an outstanding media specialist, writer, researcher and historian who has been invited to join the Cuatro Project team to assist in the preparation and realization of educational materials for the Project. She directs her own media production company and directed the recent Cuatro Project video documentary titled "The Decima of Borinquen." She is currently working on the organization and editing on the Cuatro Project textbook, "Searching for the Puerto Rican Cuatro" which covers the history and development of the family of traditional stringed instruments of Puerto Rico. You can communicate with Myriam Fuentes here.

 

 

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Myriam Fuentes is dedicated to the organization, editing and realization of educational materials for the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project.
Carlos Flores is a multifaceted writer, photographer, historian, cultural promoter and community organizer who is also Chicago coordinator for the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project. You can reach Carlos Flores here. The web page, Puerto Rican Chicago features his life and work.


Carlos Flores, coordinator of the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project in Chicago, Illinois.

 

Support Personnel
Defenders of the culture who invariably offer to help us whenever we need them!

 

Néstor Hérnandez, UPR Professor of Music
Gustavo Batista,
UPR Musicologist
Néstor Murray Irizarry,
Cultural researcher
Gilberto Santiago,
engineer
Graciela Quiñones Rodriguez, artisan
Roberto Rivera,
microbiologist, artisan and cuatrista
Ramón Gómez,
architect
Luis Silva,
engineer

 

Participating Consultants
The following have shared their time and stories to make the Cuatro Project knowledge base grow.

MUSICIANS
Joaquín Rivera Family
Norberto Cales Family
Maso Rivera (deceased)
Yomo Toro
Pedro Guzmán
Efraín Ronda (deceased)
Edwin Colón Zayas
Emma Colón Zayas
Nieves Quintero
Modesto Nieves
Sarraíl Archilla
Elba Lugo
Gladys Jiménez
José González
Alvin Medina
Roque Navarro (deceased)
Ismael Santiago
Tulio Kercadó
Neri Orta
Jim Pérez
Nicanor Zayas
José Pérez
Totín Vale
Tito Báez (deceased)
Millito Cruz
Tuto Feliciano
Tony Rivera
Paco Marrero
Pancho Cintrón
Pedro Guerrero
Paul Kaplan US
Bob Zentz US

 

MAKERS
 
PR

Rosendo Acosta Family
Familia Franquiz descendientes]
Miguel Méndez
Eugenio Méndez (deceased)
Miguel Acevedo
Antonio Rodríguez Navarro
Julio Negrón
Jorge Santiago Mendoza
Jaime Alicea
Efraín Ronda (deceased)
Juan Reyes Torres
José Reyes (deceased)
José Pérez
Eleuterio Quiñones
Epifanio Valentin
Vicente Valentín
Cristobal Santiago
Heriberto Rivera
Felix Haddock
Fidencio Díaz

USA
:
José Rivera, MA,
Tito Báez, NY (deceased)
Natividad Tirado, DE
Andrea Restivo, NJ
Marcos Matías, NJ
Diómedes Matos, NJ
Vicente Esteves, NJ

Roberto Rivera, NJ

ACADEMICS/ RESEARCHERS/ COLLECTORS
Roberto Márquez
Francisco Lluch
Jose Manuel Dufrasne
Ratito Prieti
Marcelino Canino
Ricardo Alegría
Mario Ramos
Phil Skyler
Walter Murray Chiesa
Ted Solis
Héctor Vega Druet
Cristóbal Diaz Ayala
Gustavo Batista
Juan Carlos Montalvo
Amilcar Tirado, film maker (deceased)
E. Cruz Andino
Edgardo Delgado Figueroa
Michael Kasha
Pedro Malavet Vega
Henry Geddes

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