Stefano Pando carries a classical and modern music background. Having studied music in Montreal and at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, USA, he holds a Bachelor’s degree in early music as a Lute performer. His classical training also included a wide variety of musical areas such as electro-acoustic, composition, musical arrangement, orchestration, piano, bass guitar, electric and classical guitar.

Without forgetting, Stefano masters the Oud (african, middle eastern music), and the medieval-renaissance lute,Theorbo. In August 2005, he has performed Oud on the soundtrack produced by Freeworm for a documentary appearing soon on television called, ¨Black Coffee¨, produced by Irene Angelico.

Part of his wide body of work in the early 90’s is reflected in solo albums such as Lute Works under american label: Nightwatch Recording, on which he both performed and produced. Pando also appears on other recordings with such diverse artists as: Claire Pelletier (French lyrical artist), Montreal, Quebec, The new world Renaissance Band (ancient popular songs), Detroit, Michigan, The Moons of Jupiter (modern jazz), Houston, Texas, and The Jubilation Choir of Montreal (gospel choir), conducted by Trevor Paine. He also performed for several years with Le Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal, L`ochestre Baroque de Montréal, and L`oume as a Theorbo player.

Soil (later became mitsar) was a power trio founded by Stefano Pando in 1997. Soil / Mitsar performed in venues in Montreal and Ottawa from 1997 to 2000. Launched first album siruis bowl in 1998 and played weekly for a year and a half. Three songs played on the radio from university stations in Ottawa and Montreal, plus on sundays at 999 the buzz. It did the made in canada program with Tootal at chom fm in 1998. Tootal`s favorite song was nuclear zone. They won second prize in a band contest set out by a club in Montreal called Baloo's. The members of the band were Stefano Pando, lead vocals, guitar, Alex Dion, vocals, bass, and Martin Desranleau, drums. Then later the drummer was replaced by Bitou Mirza, and lastly Christian Lajoie who did the tracks on the album. After two years this line up has split. Also alot of members were coming and going during the end period and Pando got off the vocals replaced by Jessy and then the band lost interest and everybody went their own ways.

A lot of new people joined Stefano Pando to work on Mitsar`s second album upside. It became a long process of creative on goings, an eclectic studio album which has led a place for everyones musical talents and sensibility. It`s a very diversed expressive trip. Restez-cool was a song from Upside that played at cism, university station, it reached up to top 7 in the charts for a couple of months.

We did one live performance at an ingeneering school L`ETS in Montreal in the year 2000 with nine performers doing their part on stage with colourful light effects, costumes and video footage and animation in the background. Very colourful night, great response from the audience and then things started changing rapidly after this event and the mega line up have split up. The line up was: Pando, Cookie, Aurore, Bibianne Martin, Dino Chauvette, Dj Lance, KSB as Dominic Dagenais, jaynothin, David Gaubiac, Bruno Zinno, Liane Martel, François Gravel, Bitou Mirza and Dio. Bitou, Liane Martel, François Gravel and Dio did not appear in that show. Later Julie Ménard was performing as a lead vocalist through a couple of dance tunes produced and composed by Stefano Pando, like, Fossils, Love will Blind and many more.

After this three year episode Mitsar had changed into a musical production company operated by Stefano Pando, and from 2002 to 2006 he joined the band Cube as a bass player, arranger and song writer.

From the time he was a young pianist studying at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Gabriel Hernandez was interested in early music and singing. He studied harpsichord with Réjean Poirier and obtained a Bachelor’s degree in early music (baroque singing) from the University of Montreal in 1998. He received a scholarship from the Canadian Art Council which allowed him to study at Cambridge University in England, where he worked early music interpretation with Peter Holman and Philip Thorby, director of Musica Antiqua of London and The Hilliard Ensemble.

Among other performances, Gabriel sang at the St Georges Church in London. He also sang in the Radio Canada series “Jeunes Artistes”. He sang with La Camerata de Caracas under the direction of Philip Picket and with the Orchestre Baroque de Montréal. He was guest soloist for such works as Carl Orff Carmina Burana, Ariel Ramirez La Misa Criolla, Handel Coronation Anthems, Charpentier Messe de Minuit and Antonio Caldara’s work for alto Medea in Corinto which he created in Canada.