•  

            In the spring of 2007, Pedro asked me to provide backing vocals on a couple of tracks on his Imaginary World CD. It was the first time I had ever done such a thing, and I guess it went well because it was then that Hi-Fi Sonata had its beginning.
            Pedro asked me if I had ever written any music. Of course the desire had been there, but I had one serious limitation: I cannot play a musical instrument. But Pedro challenged me to write “something” and give him the opportunity to work on the music piece.
    The next week I returned with “Metaphor” and “Whisper”. I had the lyrics down and the tunes in my head. I sang them for Pedro, and he began to flesh them out with some real melody. By the end of that night, we had the rough cuts for both of those songs and a desire to continue.
    And so we did. For the next year, I would bring lyrics to Pedro with or without a tune. Or Pedro would bring a song to me and challenge me to find the lyrics. Sometimes he would have the tune; sometimes that was up to me; sometimes we figured it out together.
    Somehow we found ourselves with about 14 songs that had definite structure and a few more that were in their infancy. Pedro didn’t stop working on that initial 14. He labored and labored. I’d come back, re-do vocals, adjust lyrics, add harmonies. By not stopping the process, we eventually realized that we had an album’s worth of material and thought why not see it all the way through. We decided to document it with an actual CD.
    By this time it was Spring of 2008. The following months were spent refining, re-tooling, and - somewhere along the line – deciding on a name for both our collaboration and the music that came out of it. In the end Hi-Fi Sonata published a CD with 12 original songs, recorded exclusively in the upstairs bedroom of Pedro’s home. Metaphors is a nice point of interest on this collaborative journey. Who would have guessed it?
     
    Shasme

    Shasme Guarisco was born and raised in the suburbs of New Orleans. At a “much too young age” she fell in love and married Rock. Most of their married life has been spent in Florida, and Orlando has been home for the better part of a decade. Their family is complete with three beautiful children and one huge Labrador retriever.
        Shasme has a love for words and taught English for several years. She loves to read almost as much as she loves to sing. Though it has never been her profession, music has always been a very deep passion. Shasme doesn’t take for granted having such a unique opportunity to create music with Pedro. Both have very different qualities and sensibilities that seem to work nicely together in the creative process.
        Shasme has been inspired, challenged, entertained and blessed by a very, very wide spectrum of music. She can find something to like in almost anything. Almost. However, she appreciates music best when it’s live. In an arena or in a coffee house, it doesn’t much matter.

     

     

    Pedro Collusso is a multi instrumentist (keys, guitars, bass, percussion), composer, producer and recording engineer based in Orlando FL. He has just released Imaginary, an exciting instrumental music cocktail that blends electronica jazz and new bossa, prog rock and chillout/downtempo genres. Check http://pedrocollusso.bandcamp.com or go to the Links page to obtain more info.

     

    Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Pedro has a degree in Communications and moved to Orlando, Florida in 1995. In his native country, Pedro's musical journey includes shows, composing, recording sessions, TV and radio appearances playing keyboards and guitars and singing with the band Beta Pictoris in Brasilia during the 80's. Pedro also had a musical side project with his sisters in the new bossa band "Verbo" in the early 90's and worked as a MIDI consultant for a Roland/Korg dealership in that town between 1991 and 1993

     

    From 1996 the end of 2010 , Pedro played keyboards, bass guitar and guitar for the worship band at the River of Life Presbyterian Church in Orlando. Currently he plays keyboards and guitars for Kensington Church Orlando in Windermere FL. In 1999 he started a partnership with local musicians founding the band Neon Dream, which is very active gigging in Central Florida playing classic rock and pop covers until these days. They recorded a CD of originals in 2001, Always a Mystery, which Pedro produced. He left Neon Dream in Dec 2010.

     

    Pedro cites as his major musical influences The Beatles, Tom Jobim, Milton Nascimento, Lo Borges, Pat Metheny/Lyle Mays, Brazilian artists like Djavan, and also admires and listen to a lot of modern electronic artists/chillout/downtempo artists like Zero 7, Bebel Gilberto, Late Night Alumni, Thievery Corporation, Samantha James, anything that is straight ahead modern jazz and jazz fusion, classical and folk guitar composers and the progressive rock bands as 70's Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Mike Oldfield . Pedro also works as a recording session musician. He is credited as the keyboard player for the CD Limited Edition, released on March 2004 by the legendary Roger McGuinn (The Byrds founder, singer/songwriter and guitar player). Pedro also has his own home recording studio where he produced and recorded Metaphors.