Luis Manuel Gonzales Peralta

piano

Luis Manuel Gonzales Peralta began playing the piano when he was seven years old, learning to play the second movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata just a few months after his first lesson. The son of a Xicana punk drummer and a Mexican national, Luis Manuel follows in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, pianist Alfonzo Rojo Gonzales, and is drawn to Latin, jazz, and classical music. A student at Oakland School for the Arts, he has played solo, in ensembles, in the big band, and last spring for Robert Downey Jr. at the Governor’s Ball. At the age of fifteen, Luis Manuel is a fearless improviser who gigs outside of school with classmates as the  Sharp Four Quartet, performing at Two Mile Wines and the Oakland Museum. Luis Manuel performed the first movement of Alex Conde’s Flamenco Piano Concerto with the Awesome Orchestra at the San Francisco Botanical Gardens’ Sunset Piano concert in July 2016.