Dendê Macedo has been a percussionist, singer, composer, teacher, and professional multi-instrumentalist musician since the age of 14, first performing in the frontline of Timbalada, Carlinhos Brown’s superstar percussion ensemble. Since 2001, Macedo has been developing a solo career, splitting his time between the US and Bahia and working with his folkloric group Ologundê and his flagship band Dendê & Band.
Dendê & Band have performed at venues such as the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles; the KW Latinfest in Ontario, Canada; the Penang World Music Festival in Malaysia; Summerdance in Chicago and the Chile Pepper Fiesta at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Meanwhile, his folkloric group, Ologundê, has performed at major performing arts festivals and venues throughout the US and abroad, including a tour of Greece as part of the Cultural Olympiad. Ologundê was featured at the Kalamata Dance Festival and at the Athens Festival at the Acropolis.
Dendê has also founded, “Recycled Sounds,” a project founded out of his interest in making instruments out of found materials. Over the years he has created a trove of instruments including a bucket shekere, a golf club berimbau, a tire drum, and the trash snare, which was even incorporated into a line of instruments manufactured by Latin Percussion.
In addition to his musical career, Dendê has distinguished himself as a teaching artist, having provided workshops, clinics and residency programs throughout the US and Brazil at such esteemed institutions as Lincoln Center, the Juilliard School, the Eastman School of Music and the Peabody Conservatory among many others. Dendê currently teaches regularly in the Philadelphia area.
