We recently connected with Javier Cardenas and have shared our conversation below.

Javier, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Since I was kid, music had always been a part of me even without playing an instrument. Definitely, music has had such a big impact on me that I can describe my life with a musical soundtrack easily. When I was 11 years old, I received a piano as a Christmas gift, I got attached to the instrument and I started studying. Since then, until this point in my life, I have not stopped being involved in the world of piano and music in general.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was born in Valencia, Venezuela on October 13, 1978. From an early age, I had always had a deep connection with music and I finally started studying the piano at the age of 11. When I was 16, I started working at a professional level with local bands in my city and I had the opportunity to gain a lot of experience working with musicians older than me that had a longer time being in the music industry. At the same time, I continued my studies in classical and popular music. At the age of 18, I got introduced to the world of the Jazz genre and when I turned 20, I started giving lessons in music institutes. Around my 20’s, I got the opportunity to play and perform tours outside of my country with well known artists from Venezuela, this gave me the chance to play in different countries of Europe and Latin America, also some cities here in the United States and islands of the Caribbean. Apart from being a performer, I was a producer and arranger, and I kept developing my skills as a musical instructor. In 2016, I had an offer to work for a latin band here in Houston and I decided to move here a couple of months later. Since then, I have worked in a variety of projects and I have stayed focused in the musical teachings. In the most recent projects that I have been working on, it has been the production of Francisco Cardenas’ album who is a young artist ( and my son ) and I just started to teach piano in the Houston Independent School District in a program called DYAD.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

At the moment, I am trying to develop a musical program that gives the chance to other musical instructors teach students with an autism spectrum disorder. This is because, it is well known that the arts can help develop social skills and they allow individuals to adapt to the social context and environment. This is a project that is very new but I want to develop it and embrace it in a medium time period.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, music is one of the ways to make better human beings and a better society. In the aspect of building discipline, concentration and focus, share with other people, teamwork, all of these are aspects that apply to your day to day life and it definitely makes a positive impact on your being. That’s music for me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @Javierkeyboard
• Twitter: @Jecakey