Pernell Saturnino
working today
A percussionist from Curaçao who won a Grammy in 2007 for Best Latin Jazz Album, as part of Paquito D'Rivera's band on Funk Tango, and was nominated the year before on Diego Urcola's Viva. He joined Nos Antias as a teenager and toured internationally from there.
What it proves
He did it as a PLAYER on other people's records — the fourth asset on the ownership ladder, and the one nobody registers. Every session he plays generates neighbouring-rights money that only reaches a performer who is registered as one. If you are the percussionist on somebody else's album, this is your career path and that is your money.
Read the topic: Owning your work →
Izaline Calister
working today
A singer from Curaçao who performs in Papiamentu, fusing the music of the island with jazz, and won an Edison — one of the Netherlands' main music awards — in 2009. She performs at venues and festivals around the world.
What it proves
She did not translate the language to travel. Singing in Papiamentu is what made the work unlike anything else on the bill — the exact commercial advantage this library argues for, demonstrated by somebody who has been doing it for years.
Read the topic: Sync and film →
Jan Gerard Palm
1831–1906
A Curaçao composer, the first to write music for tumba lyrics, and the start of a family that kept composing for over a century — Rudolph Palm (1880–1950), John Palm (1885–1925) and Edgar Palm (1905–1998). Waltzes, mazurkas, danzas and pasillos sit at the centre of the island's classical tradition.
What it proves
This is the catalogue the library keeps pointing at. A hundred and ninety years of composition exists on this island, and almost none of it is registered, cleared or findable by anyone looking to licence it. Somebody should find out who owns it. That is a business, and it does not exist yet.
Read the topic: Sync and film →
Wim Statius Muller
born 1930
A Curaçao composer and pianist, named in the island's classical canon alongside Robert Rojer (born 1939) and Randal Corsen (born 1972) — a line of composers running unbroken from the nineteenth century to people working now.
What it proves
Three generations, one small island, no break. The thing that carried it was not a market or a label — it was a practice, kept up, and passed on. That is the argument of this whole library in one family tree.
Read the topic: Building a practice →