Musical band from Mérida created at the beginning of 2000 by two young students from the Harmony and Composition Class, taught by the guitar player Javier Alarcón. In spite of their young age, Francisco Vielma and Diego Maldonado, both from Mérida and eager to increase their musical knowledge and to spread their melodious pieces of work, decide to record their final compositions at the recording studio.  

They managed to work with the great saxophonist Pablo Gil as a guest musician, as well as the guitar player Javier Alarcón and other musicians from Mérida to make us enjoy 4 excellent tracks recorded on a demo. This outstanding work delighted the huge musical jazz-loving community from Mérida, and at the same time, it was broadcasted by exceptional shows on the radio dedicated to this excellent musical genre.

By mid-2004, "Nuevas Almas World Jazz Ensemble" decides to bring their ideas to the recording studio, following a clear innovating line of improvisation in their music and developing a unique style in their compositions, but this time, they were pursuing to record their very first album which would include 9 new songs written by themselves and another one composed by the bass player from Mérida Heriberto Rojas.

 A year later, having completed most of the album, the record label "Cacao Música" , an important Venezuelan label, that represents artists with exceptional international careers like Alfredo Naranjo, Orlando Poleo, José "Changuito" Quintana, Horacio "El Negro" Hernández and Aquiles Báez, among others, decides to back up the remarkable work created by drummer Diego Maldonado and percussionist Francisco Vielma.

How to define this project?

The band's name speaks for itself, Nuevas Almas World Jazz Ensemble: New Souls : young people, fresh music, new talents, like this percussion duet, since one of them is 22 and the other is 25. World Jazz: Jazz from the World, that is what one finds in this work filled with a conscious fusion and personality coming from several African American contemporary genres and African Venezuelan genres, all traditional in all their compositions and without altering their pure forms of interpretation. Adding to this product the melodious colors brought by important Venezuelan musicians that work in this project, such as: Oscar Fanega, Pablo Gil, Cesar Orozco, Hugo Fuguet, Johán Espinosa, Rafael "El Pollo" Brito, Alfredo Naranjo, Roberto Koch , Carlitos Sanoja, among others.