Luis Dardano is a musician, songwriter, composer, producer, professional guitar and bass player based in New York City.
Born and raised in El Salvador, Luis began his musical endeavors at age 12, when he first started practicing with his mother’s guitar.
Dardano’s first musical compositions and local presentations happened when he was 17 years old, playing guitar in the local Metal community with bands Necrosadic and Prognosis Negativa.
In his 20’s, Luis became part of Manuel Contreras y Contratiempo, a Trova band, with which he participated in numerous shows and festivals. He also formed Oggruvus, a Rock-Fusion band along with Jonathan García on bass and Arturo Tovar on drums. He later started playing for the famous local band called El Gruve, a Funk band, to then be part of El Santo Gruve, a Hip-Hop/Funk project for which he recorded guitars.
Luis Dardano has collaborated in live performances and recordings with Central American artists such as El Gordo (Guatemala), Galicia (El Salvador), Cuarteto Sharberg (El Salvador), Cantalejo (El Salvador) and Roberto Nóchez (El Salvador).
In 2014, Luis participated in the El Salvador Jazz Festival with two of his projects: Tri-Tone and Gypswing. Later that year, Gypswing won first prize at the III Participative Jazz Festival, organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador.
Dardano moved to New York City in 2015, where he has worked in different projects that have allowed him to continue shaping his own music.
In 2016, he began working with Katie Spalding, a local singer/songwriter with whom he later formed the rock/soul project The Eclipsers along with bass player, Matt Lipson, and drummer, Kaveh Hagtalab. The project released a homonym EP in 2018.
That same year, Luis started playing with Uprush, a New York based Pop & R&B band that plays both covers and original songs. Uprush is led by singer Alli Zack, with Alex Kamm on keys, and Adam Moses on drums.