Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Roco Córdova is a vocalist, composer, producer, and improviser based in the San Francisco Bay Area. They possess a B.Mus. in Composition from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and an M.A. in Composition from Mills College in Oakland, California.
Their music has been described as “slow-boiling, apparently timeless” with “an odd momentum of its own” (The Washington Post). Cordova’s work fuses diverse influences with electronic media, chance operations, gradual processes, noise, improvisation, and timbral techniques of composition. Voice is at the core of their music making: they incorporate extended techniques like throat singing, overtone singing, falsetto, and vocal clicks and pops into live performances that emphasize the electronic processing of these sounds.
As a touring vocalist and improviser with The Art Ensemble of Chicago, they have performed extensively around the world in cities including but not limited to: Knoxville, Tennessee; Chicago, Illinois; São Paulo, Brazil; Washington, D.C.; and Créteil, France. Roco has also collaborated with artists like Temoleh, Monopiece, Dirt and Copper, Theresa Wong, GeraldCaselDance, La Macacoa, and Danistha Rivero.
