Who We Are
AnjChito is composed of Angie Barkhouse on Vocals/Saxophone, Chito Salazar on Guitar, Ricky Lyan Kyang on Bass and Rafael de los Reyes on Drums and Percussion. AnjChito's compositions are a culmination of Angie and Chito's years of musical experience.
Amidst the pandemic, Angie, an accomplished saxophone player and singer, decided to collaborate and write songs with Chito who has already done collaborations with other singer/songwriters in the past. The AnjChito music that they have created is a blend of catchy melodies and lyrics that reflect a heavy influence of jazz, rhythm & blues and funk. It has been described as self-effacing, smooth and highly polished, where what matters most is the overall sound coming from the individual parts.
Angie Barkhouse
AnjChito's singer and saxophone player extra-ordinaire Angie Barkhouse, has been playing saxophone for over 35 years. She began playing through her high school band program and soon became very focused on the instrument, attending summer programs for both classical and jazz music as well as taking weekly private lessons. She continued on to graduate with a degree in music performance from Acadia University in her home province of Nova Scotia.
Angie has been playing in bands around Ottawa since the early 2000s, including the band MoSayk, which is how she met Chito. She and Chito formed AnjChito as a duo in the fall of 2019, putting Angie in the lead singer, and eventually songwriter role for the first time in her musical career.
Angie says "Through my saxophone, I can bare my soul and express myself more deeply than I ever could with words; playing music allows me to take even my deepest, darkest feelings and turn them into pure joy."
Chito Salazar
A self-taught guitar player, Chito has been playing guitar for more than half a century and has over 30 years experience performing in different bars, clubs, restaurants, stages and festivals in Ottawa.
AnjChito's band leader & musical director has played with and also led a number of original and cover bands playing rock, jazz, blues and r&b music.
Chito has also collaborated and written music with a number of local singer songwriters, and have recorded and produced albums in the past. Together with Angie, they are the main songwriters of AnjChito.
Chito says: "it's all about the music".
Ricky Lyan Kayng
Ricky is AnjChito's bass player and also doubles as their sound engineer. Ricky is an excellent musician and has been playing bass for over a decade with no formal music education. He learned and picked up music theory as the years went by from all the great musicians he was privileged to have played with on the many big festival stages across Canada.
Ricky also started playing in bands around the same time he started playing bass. He's had stints with local bands playing different forms of reggae, r&b, soul, funk and blues.
Ricky also plays bass for Ras Lee & the Vibes Band as well as he is also one of the sound engineers at Ottawa's iconic live music hall, the Rainbow Bistro .
Ricky says "Music is life , music is in everything , music can set you free."
Rafael de los Reyes
The latest member of AnjChito is drummer/percussionist Rafael de los Reyes. Rafael was born in New York City, in the district of Manhattan known as Hell's Kitchen. He was raised in a musical environment as he comes from a family of musicians. His early music career was playing percussion in his father's band playing around the NY metropolitan area as well as doing recordings with local groups.
Rafael studied formally under William Kessler, Henry Alder, Sam Unano before moving to the Drummer's collective in the 1970s. His musical career was briefly interruped when he served as a member of the US Army's Special forces in the 70s. After his tour of duty, he picked up where he left off, playing in major clubs and Broadway Theaters in NYC.
Throughout the years, he has played with numerous artists, including Bo Diddley, The Shirelles, The Drifters, The Platters, Ben E King, Joey Dee and the Starlighters and many other top performers. He also played in Ricky Martin's landmark performance of "La Copa De La Vida" at the Grammy Awards In 1999.
Rafael says “The pulse of life is simple and consistent. Music is the same. Without a steady pulse, feel and respect for the music being played, it's meaningless.”.