Rolando Lara is a percussionist and bandleader performing and advocating the Afro-Cuban music and culture for now more than two decades. He has expanded the vocabulary of the Cuban music scene by arranging and playing a wide range of different stiles like Afro-Cuban Jazz, Timba, Rumba, Mambo, Pilón, a captivating repertoire exploring the journey allt he way from the classic Cuban music to contemporary Cuban music. This has enabled Rolando to create music and projects with a dynamic and rich combination of rhythms forms and sonorities.
Also as the leading percussionist of Raúl Lara y Sus Soneros, nominated in the 55th Annual GRAMMY Awards, he now thrives to continue international collaborations with other musicians and artists alongside his own projects.
Born in the vibrant city of Havana to a family of musicians and dancers the exposure of the diverse and vivid Cuban music was always close, inspiring and molding a young Rolando to later in life choose the natural path as a musician.
In the early 1990s Lara followed the footsteps of his brother Raúl Lara and left Cuba for Sweden. The Lara brothers have a solid platform in Scandinavia and have accomplished an exciting and high quality body of work. Rolando has during his years in Sweden continued to performe, explore and develop the scene of Cuban music by bringing diversity and innovation to his bands and projects like El Rey Shangó Superior Orchestra, Timba Odara, and Habaneros. Rolando has attended The Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg and has a bachelor's degree in music. He has performed on world-renowned stages lika Fascing Jazz Club, Nefertiti Jazz Club, Vara Concert Hall, Gothenburgs Concert Hall, Gothenburg Cultural Festival and throught music scenes in Europe.
As a young boy Rolando used to go every Friday to the Central park of Havana and listen to the wind orchestras and Big band playing different Cuban stiles like Danzón, Mambo, Cha-Cha-Cha and Boleros. He was especially intrigued by the constellation of the Big bands and the beautifully subtle melodies combined with afro-Cuban rhythms.
This would later become the inspiration and drive for the birth of one of the most important musical achievement in his musical carrer. In response to how the fundamental cuban musical genres like Danzón, Pilón, Mozambique was slowly being forgotten, Rolando created, El Rey Shangó Superior Orchestra to keep the innovation of all these amazing rhythms alive and therefore honor the heritage of the Cuban music and its amazing history. El Rey Shango Superior Orchestra reinvigorates the aftermath of an Afro Cuban legacy, taking you on a musical journey to where it all began.
El Rey Shangó Superior Orchestra is an important project with the goal of preserving the development of Cuba’s vibrant musical heritage. This Big band Orchestra performs outstanding arrangements from the late 19th century and beyond. Performing pieces written and composed by some of the greatest pioneers of Cuban popular music, the orchestra demonstrates through live performance what Cuban music is all about, illustrating the island’s cosmopolitan history, dynamic culture, and penchant for improvisation.
Photographer: Reneé de Càrdenas