Karina Colis, drummer percussionist and vocalist from San Luis Potosi, Mexico based in New York city, is a touring artist having performed extensively in Mexico, the US, South America, Europe, Asia, and the middle East with several projects that rank from Latin, jazz, world and fusion having appeared in more than one hundred radio stations, TV programs world wide. Karina's work is portrayed in more than fifteen albums including Mango "Mango Blue", Canibalismo "Chicha Libre" Jarana Beat "Despierta mi niño", 'Soñando con Quito" Alex Alvear, among others.

Some of her  highlight performances with several bands from NY and other countries include international festivals and venues such as The Kalcutta Jazz Festival in Kalccuta (Prassana Ramaswamy) International Circuit in Bahrain in the Middle East, (Calpulli Danza Mexicana) Montreal Jazz Festival in Canada, 'Vive Latiino" Mexico city "Fusion Festival" in Germany, "International folk Festival" in Argentina,“Virada Cultural” in Brazil, (an open air festival with a an audience of 300,000 people) New Morning in Paris and Babel Fest in France with the group Chicha Libre . In New York Karina has performed at renown venues such as Birdland jazz club,performing Latin Jazz award wiiner Paquito D rivera, The Zinc Bar , Fat Cat,  Eunconter of Colombian Musicias in NY,  and Zinc Bar (Gregorio Uribe Big Band) Moma Museum of Artt, Linclon Center (Pablo Mayor Quartet)  Smalls jazz club, Bar 55 (with  award winner bass player, John Benitez), Iridium jazz club among many more...

Karina was granted a scholarship from Mexico ,FONCA Fondo Estatal Para La Cultura y las Artes in support of her scholarship in Berklee College of Music, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2006. While in Boston, Karina started gaining experience and performed as a regular basis with pianist/ Berklee Faculty Rebecca Cline (Rebecca Cline jazz trio), singer/composer Mili Bermejo, and was a percussionist and vocalist of Mango Blue, led by Ecuatorian composer and singer/bass player Alex Alvear with whom she also recorded his second CD album "MANGO" and "Soñando con Quito". produced by pianist Alain Mallet (Paul Simon) recorded in Boston MA. With Mango Blue Karina participated at The Bean Town Jazz Fest, Grand Performance festival in Los Angeles, California and the New Heaven jazz festival opening act for Deede Bridge Water where she shared stage with acclaimed mexican drummer Antonio Sanchez. Karina has also shared the stage with international artist Juan Luis Guerra, Acclaimed percussionist Giovanni Hidalgo, Ralph Irrizarry, and has performed professionally with bass player and Latin/Grammy Award winner John Benitez, percussionist Luisito Quintero and saxophonist/award winner Paquito D' Rivera.

Karina's original compositions and arrangements are characterized by a diversity of rhythms and styles, combining the roots of various Latin/South American and world music with fusion and jazz. Karina has performed her music in Dehli, India, Mexico and New York. Just recently many of her compositions have been featured in Raw Channel, a syndicated television series that began production in November of 2010. The show can currently be seen in the United States in over 73 broadcast affiliates in almost 80 million U.S. homes. The series will  be available in a variety of countries internationally in early 2014.

As a music educator, Karina has been faculty Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music in Chennai, India and has also participated in workshops and clinics including the summer program and "The Latin Culture Week" at Berklee College of music. She has also taught drumset clinics at Boys Harbor Conservatory in New York City and the Latin American Jazz Seminary at Centro De las Artes (CEART) drumset clinics at Instituto Potosino de Bellas Artes in her home town San Luis Potosi . 

 


Roman Rojas is a Latin Grammy nominated producer, singer/songwriter.  Some of Roman's credits include working with actor/dicrector Eugenio Dervez, Grammy Award winner Mireya Ramos of Mariachi Flor De Toloache, ex FC Barcelona footballer now turned Sony Latin Music recording artist Pinto Wahin and iconic Venezuelan violinist/singer/songwriter Wuilly Arteaga. 

Roman has also produced music for several brands that include; Subway, Conde Nast Traveler, Cavit Wines, Time Warner Cable, Vonage, Master Card, Worldcup 2018 Telemundo Deportes, Chevy, Chips Ahoy, Macy’s, Paramount Pictures, Wallmart among others. 

When he's not working in the studio producing music, Roman performs a repertoire of Latin American music around the New York City area. 

Roman is also the host and creator of the the incredibly funny and innovative Spanish language podcast Tremenda Vaina along with creative director Danilo Alvarez. Tremenda Vaina is part of the Revolver/I Heart Radio family.

Chicha Libre plays a mixture of latin rhythms, surf  and psychedelic pop inspired by Peruvian music from Lima and the Amazon. The Brooklyn collective is made up of French, American, Venezuelan and Mexican musicians who mix up covers of Peruvian Chicha with original compositions in French, Spanish and English, re-interpretation of 70’s pop classics as well as cumbia versions of pieces by the likes of Satie, Love and Wagner.

Chicha is originally the name of a corn-based liquor favored by the Incas in pre-colombian days. Chicha is also the name of Peru's particular brand of cumbia first made popular in the late 60's by bands such as Los Destellos, Manzanita, Los Mirlos and Juaneco y su Combo.  While loosely inspired by Colombian accordion-driven cumbias, chicha incorporated the distinctive pentatonic scales of Andean melodies, some Cuban son, and the sounds of surf guitars, farfisa organs and moog synthesizers; an oddly post-modern combination of western psychedelia, Cuban and Colombian rhythms, national melodies and idiosyncratic inventions which were close in spirit to the Congolese rumba of Franco or the pop syncretism of Os Mutantes.

Chicha Libre started out in 2006 as a tribute to Peruvian pioneers but quickly evolved into an original project which MTV has cited as one of the world's preeminent Tropical Psychedelic band. Indeed, while they remain true to their Chicha roots, Chicha Libre's music has taken a definitely more psychedelic turn drawing more and more from its members' alternative background. 

Chicha Libre's sound and approach are completely indebted to the Peruvian bands it originally emulated. Like their mentors, they use surf guitar, organ sounds and latin percussion to play a mixture of borrowed and homegrown sounds. Their sound has become more processed, synth sounds and treated guitars and the borrowings are differ from that of Peruvian precursors   - classical music and pop debris from 3 continents in Chicha Libre's case – but the latin rhythms that form the basis of the music are both as inherent and as foreign to them as they were to the Shipibo Indians who first took up the electric guitar. 

.Chicha Libre has performed around the world, including Turkey, The UK, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil,  Mexico, the US, Canada and, of course, Peru. They have showcased at WOMEX, in Copenhagen, and Globalfest, in NYC. They have played in Los angeles with guitarist Jose Carballo, of Chacalon y la Nueva Crema fame, in Lima with Los Shapis and in Berlin with Ranil, the legendary cumbiero from Iquitos. They have toured with cambodian psych-band Dengue Fever and shared the stage with bands as varied as Brazilian Girls, The Skatalites, Frente Cumbiero and the Orchestre Poly-rythmo de Cotonou.

Chicha Libre's music has been featured on TV shows Weeds and Homeland as well as a Simpsons' 20th anniversary special in which they were asked to play the Simpsons' theme "chicha" style alongside the likes of Red Hot Chili Pepper and ZZ Top. They have also scored a Vaclav Havel play which was performed at Colombia's Miller theater in the author's presence and two Charlie Chaplin films which they performed at NY's prestigious Merkin Hall.  Their two albums, Sonido Amazonico and Canibalismo, are available from Barbès Records in North America, Crammed Disc in Europe and Random Records in South America, as is their EP Cuatro Tigres.

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