Daniel Cruz (musician)

Career

Daniel graduated initially as a chemical engineer from the Universidad America in Colombia. He decided to pursue another field after he won a scholarship from the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Mexico to develop a musical project called "Sal del Sueno" in Mexico City. In Mexico, Daniel Cruz worked and recorded with the guitarist Emmanuel Mora Toraya, the producer Rodrigo Mora Toraya, the bass player Aaron Cruz and the percussionist Carlos "El Popis" Tovar. The recording and production of "Sal del Sueno" was made at ICTUS Studios. After that he traveled to London where he studied Music and Recording Arts at SAE London and Middlesex University. He was awarded a First Class Project for Gypsyhood, a musical project and a social study on Street Musicians. Daniel Cruz presented his Gypsyhood music CD and social research at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2009. With the talk Gypsyhood: Street musicians from around the world Daniel shared his experiences of making this project.

Daniel as a Recording artist

Daniel has travelled the world with his portable studio recording his own songs with the collaboration of outstanding street musicians. Gypsyhood is the compilation of 10 years of material recorded in 12 different cities of the world. Gypsyhood started in 1996 as an experimental jam session on the streets of Bogota, Colombia, and grew into a vision to give street musicians of the world an opportunity to show their talent, while performing original material. Gypsyhood was recorded in cultural centres, music schools, houses of friends, wedding halls, livingrooms and in the street itself. Daniel says in the booklet of his Gypsyhood CD: "Gypsyhood took a life of its own after travelling from one city to the other. For instance, for the recording of “la vecina desjuiciada”, I had a Scottish piano player beginning the track and then an Ecuadorian friend continuing it. The guitar was recorded in Stockholm by a Swedish friend and the chorus was sung by an Italian friend living in London… everything to accompany the recording I made with Fransua, a street musician from Santa Maria del Mar, Cuba" Gypsyhood has been released by the English Music Label Planet Alice Productions. His songs Gypsyhood and Tu amor y el futbol was released on a single that later on was used as part of the "Misheard Lyrics" trademark sketches from YouFM radio station Germany. The "Misheard Lyrics" version of that song also featured of the live transmission of the 2011 Women's FIFA Football World Cup match between USA and Colombia. The Sabah newspaper of Turkey, with one of the biggest circulations in that country, titled an article on Daniel Cruz's Gypsyhood as "Kolombiya'dan yollara dusen muzisyen" (A musician fallen from Colombia to the roads).

Writer

Daniel has published his first book Bajo el arbol de las Letras, a book written in Spanish and reviewed by Famous Colombian journalist Daniel Samper Pizano, as a book created to make children learn to love the Spanish language. Daniel featured at the Frankfurt Book Fair as a guess speaker with his conference A Spell Binder Under a Tree of Spells"

Peace activist

Am I really alive? is a peace project that Daniel recorded with his friends from all around the world. In his own words he says: "I created “Am I really alive?” as an artistic experiment of getting together with friends from different nationalities and backgrounds to meditate about peace and the horrors of war.

Am I really alive? has two sides: I love to see you smiling and A bullet changed my life. The first one is a message of love, an account of magical beautiful things that come from apparent differences; it is a message of hope and gratitude. The second one is the story of innocent people caught up in the middle of war; it intends to raise awareness to keep in our mind and prayers the victims and their families. The greatest thing we can do for peace today is to encourage peace awareness developed by small achievements in ourselves and in the circles where we interact." [1]