Growing up in Venezuela with French and Colombian-Spanish parents, Alejandro de Valera is a virtuoso fretless guitarist who now lives in Paris, France. Alex, as he’s known, is a long time friend and Addictive TV member and has worked with us on several projects, including our 2004 live cinema performance The Eye of the Pilot.  The project toured internationally for a number of years in the mid-2000’s, from SIGGRAPH 2006 in Boston, USA and the San Francisco International Film Festival to digital arts events in Moscow, Amsterdam, Bucharest and at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and most notably in Ireland at the Cork Opera House for the 50th Cork Film Festival during the cities celebrations as European Capital of Culture.

Also a guitar teacher, Alex is an expert with fretless guitars, not an easy instrument to come by, so he custom builds them.  He has a whole collection and his weapon of choice is a rather different 8-string fretless guitar that he created, allowing guitar and bass in one; with this, he says “it’s perfect for adjusting the pitch more easily live“.  Very much part of Orchestra of Samples, Alex has written some of the tracks with us and nearly always performs live on the project.  He also records under the name The Nebulae of Something.

2019 UPDATE NOTE:  Alex performed on a large number of the UK tour dates in 2017 and 2018, including WOMAD Festival, Coventry Cathedral, BBC Music Day and for the Orchestra of Samples album launch in London, at the Courtyard Theatre.