Colombian 'X Factor' winner Madeiro makes a home in Rochester 

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Colombian musician José David Madero Visbal — who goes by the moniker Madeiro — first came to Rochester to visit his brother, a doctor who lives in Pittsford. But he was eager to check out the local music scene, so Madeiro reached out to Jackson Cavalier.

The Rochester singer-songwriter was skeptical.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever told Jose this, but I thought it was a spambot at first,” Cavalier said. ”He’s very forthright, and ‘Hey, we should do this thing,” which at the end of the day, that is kind of the spambot approach. But no, he was very real.”

The two artists met up for coffee in January 2023. When they inevitably began to collaborate on songwriting, they quickly wrote and recorded 10 songs in a week. By February, the duo began releasing the songs, one per month.

Since coming to Rochester, Madeiro has worked with other local singer-songwriters — Sally Louise and Adrianna Noone — as a producer, songwriter and instrumentalist.

“If you're a small artist now (and) you release an album, you're basically putting a nail in your coffin, because no one's gonna hear it,” Cavalier said. “You can release the songs on the album after the fact.”


The duo’s first single as Madeiro & Cavalier was “Meet Us at the Mountain,” released on February 15, is foot-stompin’ backwoods-blues powered by the simplicity of two songwriters singing an octave apart, a choice they have repeated on subsequent singles “In the Morning, I’ll Be Gone,” “Confessions of a Dead Man,” and “The Seer.” Madeiro’s voice is a smooth bass-baritone, while the controlled frenzy of Cavalier’s tenor adds an edge.

Madeiro said he feels a mystical connection to the artists with whom he collaborates, which he likens to sex.

“It's an energy that cannot be invented,” he said. “And that's happening a lot in the music lately. People are trying to prefabricate this energy, and you can't.”


Prior to his collaborations with Cavalier, Sally Louise and Adrianna Noone, Madeiro was likely unknown to Rochester music fans. But the newcomer is famous in his native Colombia as he won the country's version of reality television competition “The X Factor” in 2021. Madeiro also runs his own entertainment company, which includes recording, publishing and distribution.

Despite the notoriety and success in Colombia, Madeiro has applied for permanent residency in the United States. His attraction to Rochester comes from its similarities to Barranquilla, his small native city.

“I actually feel this place is like my hometown,” he said.


Madeiro is an itinerant musician at the moment, but this likely isn’t the last Rochesterians will hear from him.

Madeiro & Cavalier's next single, "Forevermore," comes out on May 16. "I'm the Other You," Sally Louise's next collaboration with Madeiro, is set for release on July 4.

Daniel J. Kushner is an arts writer at CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].