Celso Machado

Composer, producer, guitarist, lyricist, singer, and music teacher Celso Machado was born in Ribeiro Preto, Brazil on January 27, 1953. From an early age, he was a performer of some sort, getting his start at the age of seven as a member of musical street acts. He would eventually begin to take his sound to a worldwide audience, and in 1989 made a permanent move to Canada. In addition to being a well known Afro-Brazilian musician and performer, Machado has won awards for his film scoring work, including a Leo Award in 2000 for his work on the documentary film Company of Fear. He earned a nomination for an earlier (1999) Leo Award for Best Musical Score for A Documentary as part of a collaborative effort with Salvador Ferreras and Joseph Danza for the film A Place Called Chiapas. Awards were not limited to his scoring work, however. His albums Varal (1997), Jongo Lê Daqui (1999), and Capivara (2005) were all nominated for the prestigious Canadian Juno Awards in their respective years, with Capivara being a nominee for World Music Album of the Year. His musical career really got going upon his move to the metropolis of Sao Paolo in the seventies. From there, he would record more than ten albums over a thirty year career. In 2008, Machado's work was once again honored as he was nominated for yet another Juno Award in that year's ceremony.