Carnegie Hall

Cuban son is one of the most popular musical styles in Cuba, and Kiki Valera is one of its foremost exponents. Over the last century this style of traditional Cuban music contributed to many other genres including jazz, cha-cha, mambo, salsa, and timba. Cuban son is the music that made Buena Vista Social Club worldwide stars in the late 1990s, but Mr. Valera comes from a family of musicians whose involvement with Cuban son predates that by decades. He is the oldest son of the famous La Familia Valera Miranda, a multi-generational musical septet from Santiago de Cuba. Since the 19th century, La Familia Valera Miranda has played a significant role in Cuban culture by collecting and preserving the deep-rooted traditions of the legendary Sierra Maestra Mountain region. Its debut album, Antología Integral del Son, released in 1982, helped initiate the explosion of interest in traditional Cuban music.

Mr. Valera, like most of his family, is a virtuoso. A multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, sound engineer, and producer, he is best known as one of the world’s greatest players of the Cuban cuatro, a mid-size guitar with eight strings grouped in sets of two. He picked up the Cuban tres under the guidance of his father Felix when he was a child. He later attended one of the most prestigious music schools in Cuba, the Conservatorio Esteban Salas in Santiago de Cuba, and by age 15, he was touring internationally. During his years as an electronic engineering student, he co-founded the group Septeto Turquino. In the early 1990s, he played cuatro and keyboards in the popular orchestra Los Karachi. By the end of the decade, he was busy recording and touring with La Familia Valera Miranda to Europe and around the world.

He continues to direct, compose, arrange, and perform internationally. He also performs and teaches in Seattle, where he contributes to the vibrant music scene of the Pacific Northwest. His current project features several other internationally acclaimed recording artists including Coco Freeman (Adalberto Alvarez y Su Son and NG La Banda), vocalist Carlos Cascante (Spanish Harlem Orchestra), trompetista Alexis Baró (Cubanismo and Omara Portuondo), and bongocero Pedro Vargas (Barbarito Torres).