SOLD OUT - Why not try AfroCubism on June 27 - see below

Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club

Featuring Omara Portuondo + Papayera

Tuesday 19 April 2011 7.30pm
Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore
London
SW7 2AP
020 7589 8212
royalalberthall.com

Following a series of hugely successful performances in recent years, the twelve-piece Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club® which features a number of Buena Vista Social Club alumni make their eagerly awaited return to Europe.

This Cuban musicians’ collective has played together for over half a century. Stylistically, they span the entire spectrum of Afro-Cuban music. Deliciously slow bolero ballads and majestic danzones feature the swell of strings, while background vocals conveying messages of romance hide behind arrestingly beautiful melodies.

Buena Vista Social Club’s most influential style is the exuberant, polyrhythmic music known as son, which gave birth to both Mambo and Salsa. These upbeat numbers are full of infectious guitar licks, multilayered Afro-Cuban rhythms, soaring vocal melodies, and brash, Big Band-style horn parts.

Joining this new and expanded lineup of Cuban players is vocalist Omara Portuondo, a member of the original Buena Vista Social Club, whose 2008 recording Gracias (World Village / Montuno) won a Latin Grammy and scored a Grammy nomination.

Arts Council England