Latest updates from Roberto Rivera at RiveraInstruments and Festival Del Cuatro

Mi Gente, We are in the process of migrating email addresses from the Yahoo and Google groups into outlook, this way it will be easier to send HTML rich emails to you, with pictures and files of interest. In the mean time, go to http://www.festivaldelcuatro.org/ and http://www.riverainstruments.com/ to subscribe to the news letter. Be patient if you receive duplicate emails. Let me know so I can address it. J

New Things coming your way…our own pod cast yeeeeaahhhh!! I also have a site referred to me that gives you 24/7 cuatro music, let me verify first to ensure its not a spaming site. But I was listening to it day before yesterday and it was great!!!
Best Regards,
Roberto Rivera

A Word from Roberto Rivera: President to our own and California's only Festival Del Cuatro.My Beautiful people from Festival Del Cuatro and RiveraInstruments. You thought we had just disappeared from the face of this earth?? Well, we haven't!!
Don't be discouraged if it's been two months since our last message. We are alive and well. Just like anyone's life here. We are limited by a 7 day a week and a 24 hour period each day.My folks up in San Francisco and San Diego!! We'll setup some teleconference time so we can discuss how to proceed regarding the Festival Del Cuatro, California Tour. Sounds pretty good doesn't it?So this year we are coming to you stronger than ever. We have approximately one year to plan for our next festival. Initially we had talked about April 15th 2007. Unfortunately there is a particular office in Puerto Rico that had offered money to us for the festival in January 2006. Under that premise our Festival del Cuatro and I funded the first festival thinking that we would be reimbursed right away from that particular office in Puerto Rico. Well!! After many emails, phone calls, lots of frustration and some patience...we finally got the money from them about a month ago. In a nutshell, if I am to die sometime soon (God forbid), I want that office in Puerto Rico to give me my notice. :-) Chances are it may never happen!! :-) :-)

OK, let's get back to business. Our dear Orlando Vazquez, ohhh!! Sorry but you guys don't know who that is. Our dear Don Jibaro "aka Orlando Vazquez" is working on a full website revamp. Check it out here....we are in construction. Festival Del Cuatro website revamp! Show your appreciation and stop by his site and say hello to Don Jibaro. We all love to get our backs rubbed. So why not!! Send DJ an email and pat his back.
Bueno, If you recall we had 4 wonderful cuatristas at the First Puerto Rican Cuatro Festival in Southern California. We had Emma Colon Zayas, Yomi Matos, Edwin Colon Zayas and Yomo Toro. It was a wonderful evening filled with passion and remembrance. Many of you came to us offering support and thanking us in appreciation for our efforts. We are planning the same for our next and 2nd Annual Puerto Rican Cuatro Festival in California. We hope to bring you the best cuatro players that have contributed to our rich cultural history as well as those that are making history now! So...we had to change our date. Our official date is September 1st, 2007. The 2nd Annual Cuatro Festival will take place at the San Gabriel Civic Center. Now you know, that is first class baby!! See the San Gabriel Civic Center here.So for the next few months, the messages coming from me are going to be frequent and with some fresh content. For those of you that have been to my personal website at RiveraInstruments know that I had a survey going on for about two months. So what I found out was that about 50% of the people that answered knew the basic information about the Puerto Rican cuatro, the other half knew most or some of the information. In an effort to educate ourselves we will partner with William Cumpiano, Director of The Puerto Rican Cuatro Project to provide the content that will educate us with historical facts of the Puerto Rican cuatro and the role it played in our rich musical culture.I'd like to stop here for now. I have a lot to send you, but we'll take it one step at a time. Mucho Cariño to all of you. See you soon at the next Festival del Cuatro in California.Best Regards,Roberto Rivera

Take a look at some of the photos of the First Puerto Rican Cuatro Festival in Southern California that took place in Cal State Long Beach campus last January 28th, 2006.

I'll have more for you bit by bit:

Yomo Toro, Yomi Matos and Edwin Colon Zayas pause for a photo opp during the show! This is history folks!! Yomo, one of the cuatro pioneers, one of the top performers to do crossover into mainstream music. He just recently recorded the cuatro in raeggeton music. :-)) He is too much!!

Here are the NACOPRW members with Dalia Silva (Yomo Toro's singer) and Emma Colon Zayas (One of Puerto Rico's best female cuatristas) Emma is actually one of Puerto Rico's best cuatristas male or female :-) If you were present at the festival....you know what I mean. She was awesome!!

Here are some of our Festival Del Cuatro members along with some of the performers at the Festival: back Olga and Yomi, in front Yomo, Ajee, and Billy.

Who is behind Riverainstruments

Greetings my dear Cuatro Friends and afficionados,

So...you do a searh in the internet for Riverainstruments and what do you find? Lots of information in the form of well, he is an instruments builder, he is an avid seller in eBay and Amazon.com. What can I say, I just love new things and I am hooked on eBay. Go to my eBay account Riverainstruments and take a look at my store. I have some very nice things in there, jewelry, scales and depending on what's hot..well that's what you will find. I try anything that will help me generate some sort of cash to fund my hobbies. Anything I do, I do with passion. But as with anything, nothing is free. But some sort of payment needs to transpire. What I've learned these few months that I've been auctioning stuff on eBay is that I am hooked. Go to my store and check it out. BTW, if there is something you'd like me to try and find for you, let me know. http://stores.ebay.com/riverainstruments-scales-ipods-more_W0QQssPageNameZl2QQtZkm

You can also go to Don Roberto's Tiendita: Here I have the Puerto Rican Cuatro Project video documentary Nuestro Cuatro, Volumes 1 & 2, as well as La Decima Borinquena. Go to http://www.riverainstruments.com/store.htm to check it out. In my tiendita I also have tuning machines for the Cuatro. :-) Cheaper than you would find anywhere. These are Gotoh tuning machines, oil filled sealed gears with lifetime warranty by Gotoh, These are for slotted guitars (set of 3 left and 3 right) or for slotted Puerto Rican cuatros (5 left and 5 right).. Please send email to get a quote for the tuning machines for a guitar.

Go to http://mysite.verizon.net/respr4sx/riverainstruments/id3.html aTo buy Fishman pickups for your guitar or any stringed instruments.

Let me know how Im doing.
Best Regards,
Roberto Rivera