Vicente Avella The River of Calm

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Instruments	Piano
Official website	http://www.vicenteavella.com/index/
Facebook	https://www.facebook.com/avellamusic/

Pianist and composer Vicente Avella has been writing and performing internationally since 1998. Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, with his music production company Pandora's Boombox, he has scored numerous independent films, orchestrated and worked on music production for major network television shows including Family Guy (FOX) and American Dad(FOX), and written music for worldwide advertising including Intel (Saudi Arabia), Red Bull Air Race World Championship (Brazil), and official branding for FPC Sports Channel (Colombia).

Avella also performs regularly as a piano soloist, accompanist and in chamber groups, appearing at The Underground Series at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC); the Steinway Piano Gallery; the Roerich Museum Concert Series in New York City; New Jersey's Stella Lass Theater and Burgdorff Hall, among others. The Boston Globe described Avella's composition work as "good taste unto genius . . .Not everybody could write like this and never come up with a cliché." 

In 2013, Avella released his debut CD, All the Days of My Life: The Wedding Album, produced by Grammy Award winner Will Ackerman, founder of Windham Hill Records. The record received multiple awards including Best Solo Piano Album from One World Music Awards and an Award of Excellence for Instrumental Performance Solo from Global Music Awards. Global Music Awards called it "Stunningly performed, fresh, beautifully arranged and magical." The single "Bridal March" charted at No.1 on iTunes; it is also the No.1 "Bridal March" on YouTube. All the Days of My Life was nominated in nine categories, during the first round of the 56th Grammy Awards.

Avella's music continues to win accolades including the prestigious ASCAP Award every year from 2006 to 2013, honors at the International Composition Competition ALEA III, the Bernard and Rose Sernoffsky Composition Prize from Eastman School of Music, and honors from the international competition Waging Peace through Singing. He was given the title of Distinguished Musician by the IBLA International Music Foundation, and is the recipient of a Meet the Composer grant from New Music USA.

He is an adjunct faculty at Antelope Valley College and an instructor at Berklee College of Music's Online Extension. He hols posts as Liturgical Music Minister at St. Andrews Church in Pasadena, California, and St. Charles Borromeo in North Hollywood, California.

He is the recipient of a fellowship from Eastman School of Music, where he completed his master's degree in music composition; he received his bachelor's degree in piano performance from Indiana University. Avella currently resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.