en español

Ricardo Valdivieso

Marci Manríquez and Ricardo Valdivieso are Duamuxa (http://duamuxa.com/), a word of their own making that reflects their love of two muses – Dua (two) Muxa (muses)– the muse of music and the muse of lyric poetry.. Marci and Ricardo began their creative musical project 1999, while living in the U.S. Midwest. Although originally singer-songwriters, their creativity has taken them to creating radio programs, working in theater, and teaching multi-cultural performance workshops for children and adults. They are now back in the Bay Area after an extended absence working to establish their presence in the local music scene through their music, their recording studio and a second production of Chilefornia, a self-produced 12- part radio series broadcast by Radio Bilingüe Inc.

Ricardo is an accomplished guitarist, songwriter and sound-designer who has recorded the music of Rafael Manríquez, Eduardo Peralta, Francisco Villa, Axel Herrera and Edie Hartshorne to name a few of the musicians he has worked with. He began his music career in Chile working as a musician and actor in theater workshops with Roberto Nicolini, a prominent children’s theater entrepreneur and attended the Conservatory of Music in Valparaiso, Chile. Ricardo is the music director and producer of Duamuxa’s material for performance and workshop purposes. He has performed the main musical pieces and incidental music for theater projects in the United States such as Poeta Pan, a production about the life and times of Pablo Neruda produced by Carlos Baron of San Francisco State University. He was also music director for the Esperanza theater company where he worked with the actors and performed the main musical numbers.

Duamuxa’s objective is to promote the culture of Latin America in its musical and poetic form with love songs, life songs and the songs of other renowned Latin American composers that feature varied styles and rhythms. Depending on the venue they often work with other musicians to further elaborate on the musical sounds of the duo with other textures such as wind instruments and percussion. Duamuxa has performed concerts and participated in festivals in the Midwest, California and France, including the stages at prestigious colleges such as the University of Iowa, UC Berkeley, Menlo College, and San Francisco State University among others. Cultural centers such as the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco and La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, are natural venues for our eclectic mix of Latin American contemporary music.