Miami New Times' Mastermind Awards honors the city's most inspiring creatives. This year, we received more than 150 submissions, which our staff narrowed to an elite group of 30. We'll be profiling our honorable mentions, and eventually the finalists, in the weeks to come. This year's three Mastermind Award winners will be announced March 8 at Artopia, our annual soiree celebrating Miami culture. For tickets and more information, visit the website.
UOM
What could UOM stand for? Unidentified Oblong Mothership? Upside-down Object Modifier? Utterly Obvious Mindfuck? Nope. It stands for Unheard-Of Music. Well, we were kinda close... sort of.
The three members of UOM -- Eduardo Balerdi, Daniel Fiorda, and Sebastian Leden Kremer -- created the group back in 2007. They describe it as a multi-disciplinary project with emphasis on non-traditional instruments and performance technique. "We make music with sheet metal, copper pipes, all sorts of percussion, whistles, toy instruments, harmoniums, typewriters, etc..." they wrote. In other words, they're performing a big show, with loud sounds and crazy moves.
Balerdi is a music composer and guitar player; he's composed music for television networks like MTV, Nickelodeon, and VH1. Fiorda got his start in the music business in his early teens, playing his aunt's acoustic piano. (Now he's happy with building and playing oxygen tank bells.) Kremer, on the other hand, thought formal music education was way overrated and opted out for conservatory studies in violoncello performance. He's played in seasonal orchestras, cafes, and plenty of street performances.
A great deal of their music is based on metal percussion -- they're keen on its unpredictable harmonics and rough edges. If that's not crazy enough for you, UOM's music juxtaposes ethnic sounds with a European performance quality. Imagine Inca flutists meeting David Guetta in Moscow.
Balerdi, Fiorda, and Kremer aim to entertain, stimulate and provoke the wildest dreams of their audience -- or the most hilarious ones at least.
Honorable Mentions:
Bannavis Andrew Sribyata
Sarah Kontoff Baker
Jason Snyder
Valeria Yamamoto
Jayme Gershen
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