Antonio Vergara

Antonio Vergara is a multi-award-winning international artist, sound engineer, music producer, and educator in Latin America, the United States, and Europe.

He is well known in Latin America and the Caribbean as a premier blues guitarist and lap steel guitarist. Vergara is also a singer and songwriter.

As the review by Thom Jurek, American journalist and critic for Rolling Stone magazine, Creem, the Canadian magazine of political and social theory, rock and confidential rap, puts it:

“Antonio Vergara's music is known for its tone...  biting, emotionally urgent, and using Chicago and Texas blues traditions. In addition, his clean and non-intrusive production has appeared on more than 50 albums."

In 2012 he founded his own production company and record label, AVA Records, using the label's name as the title of his award-winning solo debut.

In 2014, he made one of the first conceptual blues outings outside of North America with the charter Los Bufones also cry. Five of his themes were used in the thriller/comedy SEXY MONTAÑITA, screened in all theaters in Ecuador. That same year he was considered the most downloaded artist on all music streaming platforms with the 1x1 law (an Ecuadorian artist a foreign artist) appeared on the reverb chart as number one in the blues genre.

Vergara followed in 2017 with the adventurous ECLOSIÓN, an experimental album in the World Music genre, where he united the languages ​​of eastern and western music, it is a totally sui generis record material that intertwined classical Hindu instruments in a blues-rock sound, with strong roots, acoustic genres such as folk and country.  This search and result of the final work had a strong reception in the United States and Europe, especially in the spaces of diffusion of American alternative music, where these compositions received nominations and even recognitions for their quality of vocal interpretation, reflecting their poetic content a genuinely  unpublished.  songs with strong alternative influences of 70s sounds.

Thus, songs like "Minutiae Hot Air", "Dawn and more" were recognized with a seal of excellence at the World Songwriting Awards (USA) among thousands of composers from all over the planet.

Vergara's musical roots are familiar;  his mother, the dramatic soprano Angelina López, is one of Ecuador's most beloved singers.  In adolescence he begins to play the guitar and seek his own sound.

The search led him to learn production and engineering techniques, which he has perfected while working on record projects for independent artists.

His work took him to Argentina, where he worked with a wide variety of artists.  As an instrumentalist, Vergara taught himself piano, sitar, banjo, bass, and mandolin while diversifying his popular songs to encompass blues, rock, pop, country, bluegrass, and other styles. His versatility helped him as a live and session assistant as well as a studio technician.

He academically continued his sound studies. He obtained a doctorate in Sound and Music Production, another in Social Sciences, has a postdoctorate in Educational Politics and Culture obtained in Mexico where he continues to teach as a professor in Postdoctoral programs. He is a lawyer specializing in intellectual property and copyright. In addition to his musical vocation, he has been a professor at Ecuadorian and Spanish universities.

His solo debut album AVA was highly acclaimed at the end of the year, and earned him the Ecuadorian cultural music award as a permanent artist. The following year he won another for his engineering and music production work with his video clip "Fire in the Sky."  This album featured the musical participation of the Argentine harmonica Natasha Seara (Calamaro, Palito Ortega, Tipitos) in the song “Dharma”. From Argentina he was invited to participate by the CRU Records label in two tributes to national rock, the first a tribute to Sui Generis where the artist displays a very well interpreted version of the classic “when we began to be born”;  the second a tribute to Sumo where the artist presents a genuine version of the song "Los viejo vinagres" that was presented by Mario Pergolini live by Rock and pop for all of South America. That same year he works in cinematographic sound in the documentary “El barrio de las mujeres sollas”, a work that won the award for the best post-production and the award from the National Film Council of Ecuador.

In 2014, after taking his own album on tour in South America, he released the complex concept album “Los Bufones tambien lloran” with 13 songs focused on themes of love, pain, primacy of art and more.  The cover of the album was made by maestro Luigi Stornaiolo, a well-known visual artist where the painting “energumenescos shows on plenilunar nights” appears as the cover of this record material.

For his hard work in cultural dissemination, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Culture and Heritage granted him recognition as a manager linked to music.

In 2017, Vergara released ECLOSIÓN, a roots-based acoustic recording that juxtaposed string instruments from North and South America, including charango, mandolin, banjo, and guitar, with classical Indian instrumentation, including the tamboura, sitar, and tabla.

For the next several years, Vergara mentored and worked with other independent artists who signed with AVA Records. In 2020 he released a double album, IV, that included 16 original blues-rock songs where he was accompanied by the “father of Argentine rock,” Ciro Fogliatta, who participated in three songs, while the vocalist and guitarist Jorge Durietz (from the legendary rock duo The Argentines Pedro and Pablo) contributed to the theme "reborn."  The cover was made by the former bassist of Los Redonditos de Ricota and the plastic artist Semilla Bucciarelli, the work is titled "They observe us".  This record material was received in more than 70 countries reaching 700,000 views and more on streaming platforms.  

In London it was considered among the 200 best albums in the world by specialized press, it won in Hollywood the award for the best rock album, in this regard the members of the Akademia Music Awards issued their criteria:

Well-instructed by hard rock, Antonio Vergara's IV combines an epic, almost oracular vocal presence with declarations of magnetic guitar and percussion. Listen to mind-blowing clues like "always will be" to understand.

He also received the highest award as Engineer of the Year in international category by the Association of Singers and Composers (ISSA) of the United States, where he was chosen by more than 13,000 members around the world.

The first single from the album, "Insomnia", reached the charts, "you will always be", "at the end of the end" and "nobody sees me", "comfort zones" are part of the charts in more than 2400 radios in  all continents.  Suicide Bug was released in Hindi to the Indian market in video clip format under the direction of a Bollywood filmmaker, an unprecedented audiovisual with exclusive locations in the city of Kolhapur, at Rankada Fort and the ancient ShivJi Temple, a place with more than  eight centuries.  .  old.  All this taken from the masterful performance of actress Jahina Qureshi.  IV was well received by the specialized press in Argentina and Mexico.  This is how he decides to make the tour stopped by the pandemic through streaming format, "I am not afraid" was officially launched on the national radio live with the collaboration of the cultural centers of Buenos Aires and its surroundings, the cities of Argentina.  The activities of this cultural transmission were: Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba, Mar del Plata and La Plata.  In the dissemination of music, he was officially invited by the Senate of the Argentine Nation to accompany as a Latin American musician the cultural cycles in times of pandemic.

"I'm not afraid" traveled through these geographies:

1-Mexico 🇲🇽 (DF, Campeche)

2-Colombia 🇨🇴 (Bogotá, Cali, Bucaramanga)

3-Argentina 🇦🇷 (Buenos Aires, Córdoba, La Plata, Mar del Plata, Mendoza, Tucumán, Rosario, Santa Fé)

4-Brazil 🇧🇷 (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, Porto Alegre, Curitiba)

5-Peru 🇵🇪 (Lima)

6-Uruguay 🇺🇾 (Montevideo)

7-Chile 🇨🇱 (Santiago)

8-Spain 🇪🇸 (Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Murcia)

9- Cuba 🇨🇺 (Havana)

10- Ecuador 🇪🇨 (Quito, Guayaquil, Riobamba, Guaranda)

11- United States (Tampa, Atlanta, Los Angeles)

Antonio Vergara along with IV also provided other exclusive online concerts and music production clinics for alternative scenarios such as: Electro Rock Fest, International Blues & Jazz Festival (Colombia Bogotá- Bucaramanga) International Blues Festival (Quito-Ecuador) Independent International Festival  in Mexico City.  .  District of Mexico in its two editions 2020.

This same year he joins as a musical producer and artist with more than 25 consecrated figures of Latin American Music, together they give life to “cuarendombe” a song by Jorge Durietz where they contribute with their musical legacy important artists such as: Nito Mestre, Raúl Porchetto, Hugo  Fattoruso, Yabor, Kubero Díaz, Leo Genovese, Ana Prada, Ica Novo among others.  Later, together with the emblematic Pedro and Pablo, they released "Unexpected Encounter", a hypnotic song with an alternative tint produced by Vergara.

In August, he surprised the music industry globally by releasing the EDM lead single for the Go Corona Go movie soundtrack for Bollywood.

With the iconic band Mozzarella he remastered the hit album "in vitro".

He continues to collaborate with the Grammy and Latin Grammy winners.  In December he released “sed” a conceptual album produced for the singer-songwriter Titi Bayas where Fernando Samalea, drummer of (Cerati, Charly García, calle 13) plays three songs “without resisting”, along with Antonio y Bayas, a song authored by María  Cristina.  Bayas, Juan Ingaramo and Juan Blas Caballero;  "Thirst" and "today I have to leave you."

In this 2021 he continued producing songs for Jorge Durietz together they launch “Seeds of Illusion”, a fusion candombe with rhythms from the Río de La Plata, this record work united three countries: Argentina, Uruguay and Ecuador.

The discographic works "IV", "cuarendombe", "sed", "unexpected encounter", "seeds of illusion" received nominations for the prestigious Gardel Awards in Argentina.

In the United States through the Akademia awards he is invited to the official ceremony in Hollywood being nominated as artist of the year 2020 and "Rising Star 2021".  In this regard, the nomination letter said the following:

“First of all, we are pleased to inform you that he has been officially nominated by the Akademia executive team for both the 2020 Artist of the Year award in his genre and the Akademia 2021 Rising Star award, a special honor for those artists.  whose talent and perseverance in the field of music through extraordinary times have created a solid foundation for future success.  During extraordinary times, they have created a solid foundation for future success.  This is a significant achievement to be selected from so many contenders from around the world”.

In Holland he received 18 nominations at the red carpet awards, where a specialized jury of Emmy and Grammy awards and professionals from the independent music industry valued his work as an artist and music producer.

He is a member of ASCAP (American Association of Composers, Authors and Editors), official representative for Ecuador of ISSA (International Association of Singers and Composers (USA); Member of the Indie Collaborative (USA); Member of the Academy  Latina of Sciences and Recording Arts (LARAS).

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/antonio-vergara-mn0003830526