Marcos Varela

Marcos Varela started playing bass in his native Houston, TX while attending the highly acclaimed High School for the Performing & Visual Arts. He quickly gained recognition and by the age of 18 was one of the top honorees of the NFAA International Jazz award and a IAJE Clifford Brown/Stan Getz All-Star fellow. Later he was invited to participate in the IASJ in Frieburg, Germany, a program featuring top students from jazz programs worldwide led by Dave Liebman and George Gruntz. He was also a member of the prestigious Kennedy Centers “Betty Carter Jazz Ahead” Program held in Washington, D. C., and Ravinia-Steans Institute, held in Chicago, Illinois.
After attending the New School University/Mannes School of Music in NYC on scholarship, Marcos quickly became part of the New York and World music scene collaborating and performing with a wide variety of world class musicians including Billy Hart, Charli Persip, Martha Wainwright, The Last Poets (Umar Bin Hassan), The Mingus Big Band, Jason Moran, Yosvany Terry, Larry John McNally, Lee Curreri, Bill Lee, Manuel Valera, Brad Leali, George Cables, Billy Harper, Orrin Evans, Bob Mover, Frank Lacy, Mike Moreno, Logan Richardson, Greg Bandy, Winard Harper, Clifton Anderson, Edsel Gomez, Aaron Goldberg, Mark Shim, Phoenix Rivera, Steve Williams, Rudy Royston, Ron Afif, E.J Strickland, David Budway, David Weiss, Lauren Sevian, Bruce Barth, Bruce Cox, Andre Hayward, Tyshawn Sorey, Jacob Sacks, Junior Mance, Wayne Escoffery, Thomas Heberer, Logan Richardson, Dayna Stevens, Helen Sung, Ohad Talmor, Donald Vega, Michael Attias, Antonio Hart, Miles Okazaki, Nir Felder, Sam Barsh, Allan Harris, Robert Glasper, George Colligan, Victor Jones, Kendrick Scott, Lew Tabackin and Geri Allen. - See more at: http://originarts.com/artists/artist.php?Artist_ID=304#sthash.I2PA5pkn.dpuf