Rafael Bittencourt

Rafael Bittencourt is a Brazilian guitarist, with international recognition and singular sensibility, technique and style. He graduated Bachelor of Music Composition and Conducting in São Paulo in 1996. A few years earlier, in 1991, founded the world-famous band Angra. One of the first symphonic-metal bands in the world. The debut album "Angels Cry" reached gold in Japan and throwing the band in a great story of success in many other countries since then. More than a million records sold worldwide, it has a discography of 24 titles, including singles, CDs, EPs and DVD. More than two decades have passed and he still influences many aspiring musicians to professionals.

Rafael Bittencourt has musicality and unmistakable creativity, combining Brazilian music, rock and fusing it all to his classical training. In Angra, he stands out for his striking riffs, solos, nice melodies, lyrics and concepts for the group. His ultimate goal is to bring heavy-rock to the general crowd using easy-listening melodies on relatively sophisticated structures. Heavy-rock can be sophisticated in the development of ideas; not only in the details. Angra has released in 2014 their latest work, Secret Garden, and toured around in many countries, including Japan, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Brazil and USA.

In 2008, he began his solo career in a project called "BITTENCOURT PROJECT" and released the album " Brainworms I". Again, Rafael Bittencourt merges Heavy-Metal, Brazilian and classical music in a completely unique way, a very nice blend of emotional intensity in the arrangements and virtuosity from the musicians. With strong influence of the progressive rock of Pink Floyd, Rush and Genesis, the Bittencourt Project offers a wide blend with Brazilian regional music, classical music, Latin rhythms, pop AOR and other styles of music. The album "Brainworms I" is intended to be the first of a serie. The term "brainworms" was coined by the American neuroscientists, Oliver Sacks, to designate certain types of melodies that perhaps "stick" into a listener's minds giving trouble on forgetting. Inspired by this concept Rafael Bittencourt wrote 12 songs. Since 2006, he has added the RGXA2 to be one of his weapons in the war of making music.