About
michéal CASTALDO
Crooner/Composer/Connoisseur
Italian Cultural Ambassador & Entrepreneur
Award-winning songwriter/producer and recording artist has added the New York City Olive Oil Coop, Aged Balsamic Vinegar, Tuscan Event Planning, the rebuilding of his family villa in Calabria, and La Dolce Vita Foundation to his growing list of entrepreneurial accomplishments.
Do you need an Italian music fix? The taste of exquisite olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar? A week in Calabria? michéal CASTALDO an Italian-born Canadian, now New York City resident offers up all these things and more. As he says, “Life is not a cup to be drained, but a measure to be filled.”
CASTALDO’s cup has filled several times over, each time bringing him closer to his roots in southern Italy. “All roads lead back to Calabria for me,” CASTALDO says. That’s where I was born and where I spent the first three years of my life. And it’s where I learned everything I love.
Everything michéal CASTALDO loves includes sharing the very best Italian music, the freshest olive oil from his family’s groves, a stay at his family’s enchanting villa, Villetta Mimma Vittoria, named for michéal’s mother. To spend time with Michéal is to drink in all the things that go with “La Dolce Vita,” the sweetest life imaginable.
Michéal began filling his cup at an early age by studying voice with Maestro Pisapia a protégé of the great Italian operatic tenor, Enrico Caruso. A graduate of prestigious schools, the arts-oriented Oakwood Collegiate Institute in Toronto (where he returned during spring 2008 to perform at the school’s 100th anniversary reunion) and Berklee College of Music in Boston, Michéal has also been a producer/remixer (José Feliciano, Teo Macero, Martha Wash, Wendy Moten); recording artist (Lives of a Cell, michéal CASTALDO); songwriter (José Feliciano, Aaron Schroeder, Jim Papoulis); session musician (Herbal Essence Shampoo, E-File, Burlington Coat Factory); record label founder (MJM Records); and label executive (Vital Records).
When the Academy of Calabria Rome-Toronto honored michéal in 1996 for his contributions to the Calabrian community in Canada, and when he received the “Calabria America” 2000 for his achievements as a composer/producer, michéal was inspired to rebuild Villetta Mimma Vittoria, the home where he was born, making it available to his family and friends as well as opening it up as a rental to anyone ready for a Calabrian adventure.
In 2004 he founded the first ever Olive Oil Cooperative in New York City, providing high-quality organic olive oil from his family’s estate-grown extra-virgin olive oil to connoisseurs in North America. The Private Reserve Estate EVOO was founded in 1907 by his great grandfather Giuseppe Frisina, who had just returned from New York City as a “bird of passage” helping to build the subway system. With savings in hand he purchased a parcel of land that had centuries-old olive groves. By the 1920s his grandparents, Michelangelo Pellegrino and Maria Antonia Frisina took the olive grove to the next level and now Michéal’s uncles have over 20,000 orchards along the Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria in the foothills of Aspromonte. In short, The New York City Olive Oil Coop seed was planted a century earlier as a gift from a great grandfather to a great grandson www.NewYorkCityOliveOilCoop.com
To give back a bit of life’s sweetness, CASTALDO now runs La Dolce Vita Foundation, whose mission is to take people suffering from the blues or illness on scenic joy rides in the country in his exotic convertible roadster, a customized Mazda Miata. His story and his car were featured as Miata of the Month in November 2007. www.LaDolceVitaFoundation.org
In 2009 michéal CASTALDO launched yet another venture with high-end Italian flair called Tuscan Weddings & Events. He calls it a reverse destination event, where he brings the best of Tuscany to your party or event. www.TuscanWeddingsAndEvents.com
Nowadays michéal CASTALDO may be found on any given week performing light Italian opera; hosting an olive oil tasting complete with Neapolitan song or classic Italian pop standards; onstage at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center, the JVC Jazz Festival, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the West Virginia Italian Heritage Festival or hosting a house concert event at the home of a high-profile Italian-American family" in Italian, of course. With his current Italian CDs 'Olive You', 'Extravergine', 'Aceto", 'Villa' and 'La Dolce Vita America' CASTALDO slows the tempo, reaches deeper into the soul and passionately takes you back to his Calabrian roots.
Visit michéal’s EPK (electronic press kit) at www.gigmasters.com/italiansinger/michealCastaldo
Notes:
It’s not a spelling error, the artist is PKA and spelled michéal CASTALDO.
Michéal’s music can be heard on over 30+ Italian-American-Canadian radio stations throughout North America. CDs are available everywhere online including Amazon.com and I-Tunes.com.
The extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar are available direct to connoisseurs and not sold in stores. New olive oil harvest is available in North America by mid December
The villa is available for rent 50 weeks of the year.
Scenic Joy Rides are given once per week from May through October, weather permitting.
Tuscan events are planned only during the summertime, from June to September.
© 2010 -2012 michéal CASTALDO. All Rights Reserved.
