Bio

Growing up around music all his life in an ethnically-rich Portuguese community in California, most of Paulo’s immediate and extended family were musicians. After picking up the drums at age 9 on his own, he also began studies in saxophone and clarinet early in his teens. Later, his performance versatility expanded to piano, flute, accordion, and bass guitar. Paulo served several contracts with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, as both a saxophonist and drummer, performing with and also arranging music for musicians from all over the world in various locations in the Caribbean over the span of 16 months.

In December 2014, while living in New York City, Paulo made his first television appearance, playing drums for the Christmas special, "A New York Christmas to Remember," which aired on CBS and was shot at his adopted-home New York parish, Church of Saint Paul the Apostle.  In Fall 2015, Paulo completed shooting for the unfortunately short-lived MTV show called "The Middle of the Night Show” that only went for a single season. He was on the show for the entire season as a cast member/musician.

After moving to Nashville, TN in Winter 2015, Paulo’s music career continued to grow into new opportunities both in Music City and nationally. He has been a regular percussionist for services and concerts at Catholic Underground (NYC), performing with Brother Isaiah, Marie Miller, Mike Lahey and Tori Harris.

Paulo's previous regular project was as the full-time drummer and co-colaborator with the Nashville-based indy-pop-rock band ELEL, an exciting 8-piece band that brings together elements of rock, electronica, jazz, layered harmonies, loops, and basically anything that is available out there.  The brain-child of Ben Elkins, ELEL regularly opens for the oft-touring bands Moon Taxi and Ripe.  While Paulo was a part of the band in 2017-18, ELEL was featured at such prestigious events as Frist Friday (Nashville), Musician's Corner (Nashville), The Hop Sauce Festival (New Jersey), and SXSW (Austin, TX).

His primary current ministry-based music focus is through Summit, a monthly event at a Catholic Church in the Nashville neighborhood nick-named Germantown. He is one of the organizers/promoters and performers of this monthly gathering. His current setup is an enlarged sort of acoustic setup including cajon, hihat, tamborine, snare drum, kick, crash-ride, marktree, SPD-SX sample pad and various shakers/bells for color.

His current musical & educational focus is in finishing his 4th year teaching at Nashville Big Picture High School. In this unique program, called the Musician’s Internship, students learn about instrumental techniques, arranging, composition, music theory, band performance, and scoring. They focus on using multiple versions of Garageband, Bandlab, and Reaper on school provided Macs along with a good amount of instruments that have been collected over the years by this school to provide students with a lot of options for performing together. There is also a heavy focus on photography & videography to assist students in better understanding how to promote and use social media to offer examples of their work and progress.

He has performed with singer/songwriter guitarist Dan Bell, singer Vern Tremble, singer/actor Marcus Collins, violinist Dominique Ava, singer/pianist Jacqui Scott, singers Jack Walker and Hal Frazier, singer/impressionist Sean O-Shae, multi-instrumentalist Oscar 'El Gaucho' Silveira, and xylo-synth player David Meyer.  Since moving to New York, he has performed at historic venues in New York such as Carnegie Hall, The Bitter End, The Bowery Ballroom, Joe’s Pub, Cleopatra’s Needle, Tutuma Social Club, the Cake Shop, Berry Park, Rockwood Music Hall, Sullivan Hall, Duplex Cabaret Theater, and Zebulon.  He has performed at Musikfest in Bethlahem, PA, the Decatur Celebration in Decatur, IL, the Bele Chere Festival in Ashville, NC, and the Blue Note Jazz Festival in New York, NY.

Other projects Paulo has been involved in: Drummer and co-arranger for the Pop cover-band The Titanics; studio work for the Brooklyn-based Catholic praise and worship group, New Name; arranger and drummer for the comedy big band featuring Jason Tractenburg called The Pendulum Swings, and the Portuguese Dance Band Sem Duvida from Mineola, NY.  He has also been active as a percussionist and fill-in musical director for Catholic and Protestant church services at St. Paul the Apostle and The Journey Church.  He has performed in productions of “Man of La Mancha”, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown", “Into the Woods”, “Footloose”, “Cabaret” and with such musicians as congero Carlos Caro, bassists David Ambrosio, Tim Ferguson, and Bob DiGiacomo, guitarists Tom Dempsey and Shu Sushimoto, saxophonists Jeff Ellwood, David Englehard, Wayne Escoffery, Oscar Feldman, Javier Arau, trumpeter Dan Blankenship, singer/songwriters Danica Dora, Nick Blaemire, Haley Dreis, pianist/arranger Garrett Taylor, jazz pianist Deanna Witkowksi.  He also composed and arranged for various Portuguese performance groups throughout California and composed original an original soundtrack for a production of The Crucible at the LAB school in New York City in Spring 2011.  He also completed a composition commission to write an original piece of bullfight music for Portuguese Marching Bands as a tribute to the bull-grabbing group, Forcados de Turlock from Turlock, CA, which premiered summer of 2012. Arranging credits include co-arranger on the musical Dr. Glassheart, originally written by Jason Tractenburg, and collaboration with arranging/recording for the “Luke Live” with Fr. James DiLuzio.