Para fans de Electrónica.
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Born in Cairo, Egypt to a well-known portrait photographer, Raffi Cavoukian moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada with his family at the age of 10. Named after the American poet of the same name, Raffi developed an interest in pursuing music in the style of Dylan and Joni Mitchell and began visiting a local guitar store Millwheel to connect with other musicians. The singer-songwriter subsequently enrolled at the University of Toronto, where he also ran a coffee house, and developed his skills as a musician and performer. Before graduating Raffi dropped out of university and hitchhiked to Vancouver in 1972 to make a name for himself.
Raffi returned to Toronto a few years later after being invited to perform at a public school. The show turned out to be an immediate success and Raffi had found the audience to which his music brought the most joy and reward. The singer subsequently produced a tape of children songs which garnered lots of attention from local schools, and resulted in Raffi going to the bank to request a loan to record a full-length album. The fruit of Raffi’s basement recording sessions was his debut album “Singable Songs for the Very Young” in 1976. The following year the singer issued the adult-oriented album “Love Light”, after which Raffi focused all of his attention on children’s music, with a string of album releases including “More Singable Songs”, “Corner Grocery Store”, and “Rise and Shine”.
For his work with children, the musician received the Order of Canada award in 1983 and continued to release a succession of children’s themed albums before taking a year off in 1989. When Raffi returned, his focus had switched to environmental conservation, showcased on the 1990 album “Evergreen Everblue”. The singer-songwriter regularly tours with his backing band the Rise and Shine band, and remains true to his non-commercial ideology, reluctant to charge more than $8.50 a ticket. Raffi has subsequently released a generous collection of albums across the ‘90s and into the new millennium, endearing him to the hearts of children and adults alike, and selling over eight million records worldwide.
Raffi is a busy, busy man. The Egyptian-born Canadian’s days are taken by being an author, entrepreneur and is known to many as a Global-Troubadour and somehow in between all this he finds the time be a singer and songwriter.
His primary focus is as a children’s entertainer and in this field he has released some amazing works – even most adults I know like Bananaphone! His songs are generally simple compositions with mainly his vocals and acoustic guitar and as such he prefers a more intimate performance where he feels he can connect more directly with the children and really get his message across. He even turned down a gig at Madison Square Garden for this reason which shows how much he cares about his youthful audience. His songs vary from light-hearted entertainment to teaching kids the importance of things like brushing their teeth with the assistance of a catchy jingle or two. Whatever he’s singing about, Raffi’s primary concern is making children happy. He succeeds at this every time he takes the stage and doesn’t do a bad job at making the adults happy either!