Orlando Haddad and Patricia King formed Minas in 1978 at North Carolina School of the Arts to bring Brazilian music to stateside audiences. They proceeded to play all over the eastern US before going back to their musical roots in Brazil, where they entertained, traveled extensively and recorded their first album, Num Dia Azul.
Today Minas is one of the most sought after Brazilian bands in the United States. Minas is built upon the duo's multiple talents as vocalists, instrumentalists and composers with an impressive grasp of the whole range of Brazilian musical idioms.
At the core of any Minas show are the voices of the duo, which reflects two decades of vocal and instrumental blending. Warm and engaging, this magical sound becomes infectious when Minas adds bass, drums, percussion and horns to Orlando's guitar and Patricia's keyboards. One can experience Minas in a variety of formats, intimately, as a duo or trio, and in exciting venues with larger ensembles up to orchestra and Big Band arrangements. Orlando and Patricia have been composing original material together since the moment of their first meeting in 1974. Their recorded material consists exclusively of originals.
Orlando Haddad's outstanding facility as a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter is augmented by his lifelong involvement with Brazilian rhythms and percussion. A native of Lavras, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, Orlando has been a bandleader almost continuously since the age of 12. As a child growing up in Brazil he studied classical piano and guitar; later he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he studied at the Villa-Lôbos Institute and pursued private guitar studies.
In 1974 he came to the US to study music at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he graduated with a degree in composition. He received a Masters of Science degree in Arts Administration from Drexel University in 1986, and in 2002 a Masters in Composition from Temple University, in Philadelphia.
Orlando is a faculty member at Philadelphia's University of the Arts where he conducts Brazilian Jazz and Percussion ensembles, teaches classes on Business of Music, and History of Brazilian music. Orlando has been invited to teach at The University of Pennsylvania as a visiting professor, where he successfully conducted an ensemble of graduate students, on the subject of Brazilian percussion.
Patricia King, a native of Denver, Colorado, began her music education studying voice, piano, and composing at an early age. At age 6 she began performing and singing in musicals and a variety of programs. In 1974 she enrolled at North Carolina School of the Arts where she studied opera and continued composing. In college she met Orlando Haddad, who encouraged her to pursue her love for Brazilian music. Fluent in Portuguese, Patricia has journeyed to Brazil regularly for the past 25 years. S
he is a versatile and fluent pianist in the Brazilian genre, a singer of 4-octave range, and a prolific songwriter whose compositions are marked by a lyrical and sensuous style. Patricia holds a Master's Degree in Jazz Piano Performance from Philadelphia's University of the Arts and a degree in classical voice from North Carolina school of the Arts. She has taught music in The Philadelphia School District, and privately, as well as vocal coaching at The University of the Arts.
Website :- www.minasmusic.com
