Sam Velez is a Miami-based singer-songwriter, born to Latino parents (Puerto Rican and Colombian), with a fresh and versatile style that blends Pop, R&B, Latin ballads, Salsa, and more. Her sound is defined by rich vocal harmonies, multifaceted rhythms, and catchy melodic hooks. Inspired by Pop and R&B icons from the ‘60s to today, Sam aims to break barriers as a first-generation Latin-American artist, creating music that transcends genres and speaks to diverse audiences, opening doors in both the U.S. and Latin-American music industries. Her goal: to collaborate, innovate, and bring her sound to stages all over the world.
Winston Thayer is a composer and producer from Minnesota. He currently goes to school at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, majoring in Media Scoring and Production, with minors in Composition and Music Industry. His most notable credit is the game "Ready, Steady, Ship" (2024) developed by Jolly Bits Games, where he composed the soundtrack. He works in a variety of areas: producing and collaborating with colleagues to help launch music careers in the industry, arranging and conducting orchestras, and working with video game companies to launch both large and small-scale games. He has a passion for orchestration, playing several instruments and composing pieces that evoke emotion for his audience. He has a lot of love for music, and hopes that he can keep interjecting something fun into everything he gets to work on!
José Maria Cardoso da Silva is a native of Belém, Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon. He is a biogeographer who studies the relationships between biodiversity conservation and development in tropical regions. He has been a Professor in the Department of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of Miami since 2015. Beyond academia, he writes lyrics and partners with emerging artists, creating a space where storytelling meets new musical energy and building bridges between generations through the universal language of music.
