Martin Perna

Martín Perna is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He is the founder of the musical groups Antibalas and Ocote Soul Sounds and a founding member of the Soul Providers and the Dap Kings bands. Perna became active in New York City in the mid 1990s while a student at New York University, learning from and collaborating with roommates Gabriel Roth (Dap Kings) and Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio). While performing in Roth's various Desco Records projects, he formed Conjunto Antibalas (later Antibalas) in late 1997. The group began to perform in NYC in 1998 and began touring internationally in 2000. Perna also founded Ocote Soul Sounds in 2000 as an outlet for compositions outside the Antibalas aesthetic. In 2005, he self released "Electric Tides" and "El Niño y El Sol," a collaboration with Austin based musician-producer Adrian Quesada. Perna and Quesada linked up for three additional records, first released through the ESL label and re-released in 2016 on Level One: "The Alchemist Manifesto", "Coconut Rock" and "Taurus." Ocote Soul Sounds music has been featured in HBO's "Entourage", the feature film "Runner, Runner," MTV3's "Yo Quiero Mis Quinces" and several documentaries. He has composed original music for documentary "The Garden of the Peaceful Dragon," and short "The Last Days of Hustling," (Karim Lopez), "Night Magic" and "The Devil's Twilight" by Bernardo Ruíz, and the documentary short "Being ñ" by Henry Ansbacher and Denise Soler Cox. As a collaborator, Perna has worked with artists including Angelique Kidjo, TV on the Radio, Mark Ronson, the Roots, and several others both in the studio and on stage. He served the musical director and arranger for three concerts at Carnegie Hall including: "The Music of Paul Simon" (2014), "The Music of David Byrne and Talking Heads" (2015) and "The Music of Aretha Franklin" (2017). In addition he was the horn arranger for 2015 Carnegie Hall: "Lean On Me: The Music of Bill Withers" and the 2017 Apollo Theater Billie Holiday Tribute. Most recently, he arranged, recorded and performed alongside the Antibalas horns on Angelique Kidjo's upcoming album "Remain in Light."