Brandon Miguel Valdivia is a percussionist, flutist, improviser, and composer based in Toronto. Valdivia studied composition with Linda Catlin Smith and Peter Hatch, percussion performance with Dave Campion at Wilfrid Laurier University, and has trained with members of NEXUS. In his private practice, he studied Mbira Dzavadzimu with Bob Becker and Rainos Mutamba, West African percussion with Bob Becker, Javanese Gamelan with Andrew Timar, Colombian Gaita with Urian Sarmiento, Maria Jose Salgado and Fredy Arieta, and Jazz Drumming with Jim Blackley, including a wide range of many other Latin American percussion traditions.

In the interest of participation and cultural diversity, integrating music with other disciplines has served as a stable platform in Valdivia’s practice. Equally as in musical venues with composers and other musicians, Valdivia is an avid partner and collaborator of theatre groups such as MT Space, the Red Snow Collective, Clay and Paper Theatre, Red Sky Performance, and Aluna Theatre. He has worked as a dance accompanist for Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Ballet Jorgen, George Brown College, and various schools in the Toronto District School Board. He has also has led workshops in latino, black and indigenous (youth) communities via music education nationally and in the Amazon.

Valdivia’s practice takes inspiration and is informed by Shamanic, trance, and ancient musical traditions from a worldwide Indigenous diaspora.  He has appeared on national and international recordings for labels such as Barnyard Records, Healing Power Records, Polyvinyl Records, Constellation, and Alien8, while performing and touring as accompanist and soloist throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, Colombia, and China.

Presently, Valdivia is involved in Not the Wind, Not the Flag, Lido Pimienta, experimental Hip Hop Trio Above Top Secret, and his solo project Mas Aya, an amalgamation of his wide range of musical practices. These projects have made Valdivia notorious in Toronto’s musical scene, which has allowed him to collaborate and contribute with many other artists of the likes of Michael Snow, William Parker, John Oswald, Glenn Buhr, Sook-Yin-Lee, Tanya Tagaq, A Tribe Called Red, and Lido Pimienta amongst others.