Abel Cuevas

Bateria

A native of Galveston Island, Texas, Abel Cuevas started drumming at age 10 when his father, a former drummer of The Champs, retired from performance due to severe illness.  Abel gained his first exposure to ensemble playing upon entering middle school.  Around this time, he formed his first group, a three piece Metal band.   This band later evolved into the eight piece live Hip-Hop outfit Questionable Ethix, with whom he played until starting college.  At the time, Questionable Ethix was New Mexico’s finest and only live hip-hop band.  The group was also the youngest working band in the greater Albuquerque area. 

At age 18, his seasoned sight-reading skills enabled him to fill the drum chair in the Albuquerque Jazz Orchestra.  During his stint with the big band, he formed a Metal band, Her Black Wings where he further honed his abilities as a songwriter, arranger, and producer.  Upon completion of their full length album, he then went on to prove himself as a highly skilled and authentic blues/roots/R&B drummer, performing extensively throughout the Southwest. 

Throughout middle school and high school, Abel also participated in various ensembles including the Albuquerque Youth Symphony, the NMJW Honor Big Band, and the NMMEA All-State Orchestras and Bands.  In this time he also received several awards for both percussion and drum set performance.  Abel earned first in state at the 2001 and 2003 NMMEA All-State Jazz Conferences and, in 2004, was the first player to be named both the Outstanding Performer at the University of New Mexico Jazz Festival and the Outstanding Musician of the Albuquerque Jazz Festival in the same year. Following his performance at the 2004 Albuquerque Jazz Festival, prominent Jazz vocalist, and festival adjudicator, Kevin Mahogany expressed his appreciation for Abel’s playing, saying that he would gladly take Abel on the road, but that it would be better for him to finish school.  This sentiment inspired Abel to go to college.

Though he did not originally intend to major in music, Abel found himself in the percussion program at UNM.   Through rigorous study and practice, he gained a wealth of experience in the symphonic, solo, and chamber music realms, as well as a deep understanding of music theory, music history and pedagogy.  He performed many major symphonic, opera, and chamber works of composers ranging from Mozart to Beethoven, Respighi to Shostakovich, Varese to Revueltas, and beyond.  His solo repertoire ranged from the Impressionist piano works of Debussy, adapted for four-mallet marimba, to the virtuosic multiple percussion scores of Xenakis.  In 2009, Abel was also the featured soloist in performances of Akira Nishimura’s Concerto for Timpani and Five Percussionists. 

In the short time since completing his Bachelor’s degree in Percussion Performance in the Fall of 2009, Abel has performed as a freelance percussionist with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, the chamber ensemble Chatter, the choral ensemble Quintessence, and with the Albuquerque Jazz Orchestra for a special performance of Stan Kenton’s suite Fuego Cubano, directed by trumpeter Bobby Shew. 

He has taught percussion in the Rio Rancho High School band program since 2004, where his duties have included coaching the drum line, writing and arranging percussion scores, and directing concert percussion ensembles.  In addition to teaching privately, he has also served as a clinician at several Albuquerque schools.