The Story
Daniel Santos Burgoa (Daniel Santos Diébaté)
Has performed in México, USA, Europe, Africa and Latin America.
Flamenco and contemporary Spanish guitar player, African kora player, singer, composer, energetic healer and peacebuilding leader.
Daniel Santos Burgoa is a multi instrumentalist, composer, and energetic healer. His music blends elements of traditional music from Mexico, Europe and Africa with contemporary performance styles, rock music, electronic, and mantric and shamanic sounds.
From a young age he was trained by the great guitar master Manuel Lopez Ramos into the heart of the classical Segovian tradition. Daniel was one of the youngest students of the master. During his young adult life, in an ancient house deep in Mexico City he recluded himself in years of research into the mathematics of music and its deep archetypical secrets. A few unproven stories about him writing music with two hands da Vinci style, bringing the rain with his guitar and cracking a genetic algorithm to make a computer analyze music are part of his unproven "local legend".
In 2012 he traveled to Cassamance, a conflict zone in the southern región of Senegal. Daniel had contact with the Diébaté clan family of griots, a legendary caste of musicians, historians, counselers to kings and wordsmiths. Through the vehicle of music he managed to create the social ties necessary to gain acceptance into one of the families and lineages, which gained him access to the spiritual, social and musical teachings of the griot tradition. The name Diébaté was given to him as a symbol of belonging, solidarity and brotherhood. He was the founding member and leader of the Kayra Ensemble in Mexico, with griots Babou Diebaté and the great balafonist Djiby Diabaté.
Since then Daniel has been dedicated to become probably the first professional latín american kora player, and training in the musical and narrative strategies of african griots for conflict intervention as well as the in the study of bards and traditional mediators from different places in the world. He also trained with musicians without borders for music in post armed conflict zones. Daniel has developed a system for conflict resolution through music and narrative called contemporary griotism, taking it to places like Colombia, Cuba and Brazil and leading cultural interventions in conflict and disaster zones. He is currently moving towards the research and integration of Mayan peace building strategies and resilience training through music and bio energetics.
As a flamenco player, he learned with the gypsy flamenco ambassador El Fatimi, receiving both the original flamenco tradition and an attempt to recover its unknown spiritual elements related to kabbalah. His flamenco style can been understood as kabbalah flamenco. His classical guitar style is a mix of all his influences.
Arts, music or humanitarian organizations:
- R&A for Record Union.
- Cultural manager, and cultural marketing advisor and teacher.
- Director of the Anna Zarnecki Foundation, Arts and Humanitarianism.