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Robert Everest
Complete Biography...

Robert Everest is a musican, singer, and songwriter whose ravenous appetite for the music of the world will never allow him to be confined to any one particular style. With over 20 years of performance experience, he attains a state of inner peace with his guitar and a microphone, and the audience feels and connects with the genuine expression in his voice and his instrument.

A native Minnesotan, he was first introduced to the piano at age 5, and at age 12 he acquired his first guitar, which remains his primary instrument, although he still composes and performs on piano, as well as many stringed instruments from around the world, including mandolin, Cuban tres, Andean charango, and Brazilian cavaquinho. Robert also played bass guitar and percussion in the world music group Kangaroo, which produced 2 recordings between 1996 and 1998.

Though mostly self-taught, Robert has studied jazz guitar in Minneapolis, classical guitar in Portugal, Flamenco in Spain, Tango in Argentina, and many other Latin American styles of music throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean. His vocal technique has developed through many years of singing and instruction, including four years with the University of Minnesota Jazz Singers.

During this musical development, Robert’s second life calling has been foreign language. With a degree in linguistics from the University of Minnesota, and many travels and studies in Latin America and Southern Europe, Robert has become fluent in several romance languages, which he brings to the stage in the songs he performs.

Over the last 5-10 years Robert has become a dedicated full-time musician, performing an average of 4-5 times per week, rehearsing, teaching, managing several ensembles, and recording. He has recorded two solo CDs of music from Latin America, which have received national radio play and taken him to many international tour destinations. He also co-produced and recorded the album Sonho Meu with his Brazilian quintet, Beira Mar Brasil, which performed regularly in the Twin Cities from 1996 (then under the name "Mocotó Brasil") to 2005, during which time they were invited to such prestigious local venues as the Ordway Music Theatre, the Walker Art Center, and the First Avenue Main Stage, earning a nomination for best Latin Band in Minnesota in 1998.

Even though Beira Mar Brasil rarely performs these days in public, Robert continues to explore a variety of Brazilian music in almost every solo and ensemble performance, and has incorporated the style, technique, and spirit so thoroughly into his repertoire that on a 2002 tour to Salvador, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Carlos Alberto, the owner of Toca do Vinicius in Ipanema had this to say following Robert's performance:

"It is very rare to find such a beautiful and intimate dialogue between an artist and his instrument. We are proud to have Robert as an ambassador of our music to the rest of the world - he is a true Bossanovista."

Though he is most familiar with Brazilian music, Robert's solo performances span a veritable plethora of musical genres. In his Latin American repertoire, which makes up the majority of most performances, you can hear Mexican Bolero, Venezuelan Joropo, Peruvian Waltz, Colombian Cumbia, Argentine Tango, Cuban Son, Brazilian Bossa Nova, Dominican Bachata, Puerto Rican Salsa, and some Andean folk music from Ecuador and Bolivia. Robert's travels to Italy have provided him with material from Italian legends like Pino Daniele, Fabio Concato, and Francesco de Gregori. His Spanish repertoire includes a taste of Flamenco guitar as well as ballads by some of Spain's finest songwriters, such as Luis Eduardo Aute and José Luis Perales. In his French repertoire you can hear treasures from the songbooks of Edith Piaf and Henri Salvador. In the last few years Robert has been expanding his classical guitar repertoire to include many Latin American pieces often overlooked by many classical guitarists, by composers like Antonio Lauro from Venezuela, Julio César Oliva from México, and Paulo Bellinati (pictured here with Robert) from Brazil.

After sailing through his international repertoire, however, it's always refreshing to come back to the homeland, and in most performances you'll also hear jazz standards by the likes of Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin, and Cole Porter, along with a smattering of blues and folk tunes (T-Bone Walker, James Taylor, and Jim Croce, to name a few)

Over the last several years Robert has been hired to do studio sessions with other musicians and singers in many different musical styles: Cuban music with percussionist Andrew Turpening, Flamenco solos with Rex Habermann and Andréana Cortes, and some Bossa Nova guitar, harmony vocals, and arranging with jazz vocalists Connie Evingson (of the internationally known vocal group Moore by Four) and Christine Rosholt.

In 2007, with his world music ensemble the Robert Everest Expedition Robert recorded an album which contains only original music, the first of its kind in his discography. In the meantime he has been working predominantly on expanding his repertoire in the areas of Flamenco, classical guitar, Italian music (for recent and upcoming collaborations with the Italian Cultural Center of Minnesota) and Tango, which he plans to contribute in a collaboration with the Tango Society of Minnesota in the future. Robert is also part of Lorie Line's Pop Chamber Orchestra, and is featured on her 2008 Holiday CD as well as the national tour in November and December, 2008.


Robert is available for solo and ensemble performance in wedding ceremonies and receptions, festivals, private house parties, etc. Go to contact page for more info.

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