"We have known and admired Nando for many years. He has worked with us on occasions over the years and several PMG members have worked with Nando on his own projects as well. There is so much extra guitar work on "The Way Up" that I really felt like I needed to have someone else onstage to help me cover all the parts that needed to get played. The first guy that I thought of was Nando. He is a great guitar player and great all-around musician. He will be a perfect fit for this tour and we are very excited to have him joining us".
Pat Metheny

Born May 11, 1960, in Recife, Brazil.
A self-taught guitar player, Nando started “foolin’ around” on a Violão (Brazilian Acoustic Nylon Guitar) at age 7, as there was always one around the house. His older brother played electric guitar in a group and Nando used to go to every gig to watch them play, paying attention to his brother’s fingers and later trying to emulate those chords at home.

His admiration for music grew fast as years passed and he started listening over and over and over to The Beatles’ records as well as Brazil’s popular groups of the time. Soon, Nando was able to identify the chords played on those records and able to play them on the guitar.

Learning guitar by ear (like most Brazilian do) gave Nando the flexibility and freedom to choose the music and the way he wanted to play, as opposed to the methods imposed by the local music conservatory, allowing him to embark on a journey of discovery and great satisfaction. He was hooked on listening and trying to play it on the guitar.

At the age of 12 years old, Nando was already part of his (middle) school’s electric/pop group and started appearing on local TV shows, theaters and the school’s fairs. In 1975, at 15, Nando would watched a music festival in Brazil (called “Abertura”) that would transform his views about Brazilian Music and start a big love affair for the new music of his country. At that time, Nando discovered “Burnier & Cartier” (a young guitar duo which was a big influence on his guitar playing), Milton Nascimento (and Clube da Esquina), Ivan Lins, Djavan, Egberto Gismonti, Hermeto Pachoal, among others.

The following year, at 16, Nando would come to the U.S. (as an exchange student) to live with a host American family for 6 months and to learn English. He would then discover such influences as: Seals and Crofts, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, among others. Back in Brazil in that same year (1976), Nando composes his first song (called “Jangadeiro”) and that feeling of creating music was so overwhelming that it would make him decide what he wanted to do the rest of his life: to be a composer.

To Nando, the years between ’75 and ’83, was Brazil’s most amazing time of new music, new composers, arrangements, music experiments and projects ever. “I feel very fortunate to have been exposed to such rich music during my in my teens and early 20’s. It was pouring from all parts of the country and the media was baking it all up, creating many opportunities for that great music to reach all corners of the country and the world”.

One of those groups in special that would have probably one of the the biggest impact and influence in Nando’s music would be the Brazilian vocal group “Boca Livre” (or “Free Mouth” in English), where they used beautiful vocal arrangements as well as intricate guitar parts. So, in ’78, at 18, Nando (and friends) would create his first professional group called “Nos e Voz” where Nando would sing, play guitar, percussion, and write all the vocal arrangements (in an unorthodox way, as he didn’t know yet how to write or read music notes), and which started playing around Recife’s theaters and music venues.

Between ’80 and ’81, Nando had 3 semesters of formal music classes to learn the basics of music theory at the Pernambuco Conservatory of Music and in 1983, he came to the U.S. to study at Berklee College of Music, where he received a scholarship, as well as another scholarship from the Brazilian Government. At Berklee, he was a voice major and graduated in ’87 with a Bachelors Degree in Professional Music.

Within few weeks from the date set for his return (for good) to Brazil, at the end of 1988, Nando was called to join The Pat Metheny Group for a series of shows at the NightStage Club, in Cambridge, Mass. That would totally change his plans of returning to Brazil, and instead, he started to pursue his music career in the U.S.

In 1993, Nando signed a record deal with Narada Records and released 2 solo albums, which made the Top Contemporary Jazz Charts on Billboard Magazine and received wide acclaim among trade magazines and newspapers around the U.S and abroad. His records has been played in over 150 radio stations in the U.S. as well as most countries of Europe, Asia, South America and Canada as well.

Nando also appears in over 20 compilation projects from the Narada label, and has recorded on projects by Steve Hunt, Peter Sprague and Roberto Perera, among others. While in Boston, Nando and his group had extensively played the Jazz Clubs’ circuit, before his move to Miami, Florida, in 1997, where Nando has worked with Music for (TV) Animations, Jingles, as well as played clubs and local Jazz Festivals. Besides his own group, Nando has toured with Special EFX and The Terence Blanchard Quintet.