Larry & Joe were destined to make music together. Larry Bellorín hails from Monagas, Venezuela and is a legend of Llanera music. Joe Troop is from North Carolina and is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and oldtime musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Joe, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his stomping grounds during the pandemic. Larry works construction to make ends meet. Joe’s GRAMMY-nominated “latingrass” stringband Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum seeking migrants. Currently based in the Triangle of North Carolina, both men are versatile multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters on a mission to show that music has no borders.
As a duo they perform a fusion of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, guitar, maracas and whatever else they decide to throw in the van. Their concerts feature a distinct blend of their musical inheritances and traditions as well as storytelling about the ways that music and social movements coalesce. Larry has accompanied countless Venezuelan musical luminaries including Cristina Maica, Teo Galindez, and Rumi Olivo. While touring the country as a performer, he and his wife opened Casa Vieja, a school dedicated to teaching Música Llanera. In three years, he taught nearly five hundred students and launched Monagas’ first Musicá Llanera festival.
