Angel Adriano Rodríguez Bolaños

Singer, Cuban musician, one of the great representatives of trovadorism on the Island. Founder of the UNEAC, the Choral Festival, the Popular Music Festival, and the Varadero Song Festival. Owner of a powerful voice, Rodríguez shaped it to cultivate with ease folklore, lyrical art and trovadorism.

He came from a family of musicians, his father played trombone, trumpet and bombardino; his grandmother sang in choirs; his brother was also a percussionist; his grandfather had a sextet called Carmen, which was where Adriano began at only six years old to sing during rehearsals, doing backup vocals.

He studied music at the Conservatory of Guanabacoa, at the Municipal Conservatory of La Habana and at the Popular Music Seminary; he was a student of Iris Burguet. In 1946 he was part of the cast that Gonzalo Roig presented at the town hall of La Habana, with Rita Montaner as soloist.
Along with Rita he also shared on the radio of that time, under the direction of Enrique González Mántici, and later he was founder of the National Polyphonic Choir, currently National Choir of Cuba, and of the group Cuban Troubadours.

He participated in cabaret shows and Cuban musical theater, in film he appeared in productions such as Yambaó, a Cuban-Mexican film with Ninón Sevilla, Fever Tree, Cuba Sings, and in The Twelve Chairs, where he played a supporting role.

On the corner of his house there were Santeria practitioners, abakuá members, rumba dancers and he learned from all of them, and apart from son. Alberto Zayas, who was a personality within Afro-Cuban music, was always at his house and when he formed his folk group Lulú Yonkori he invited him to sing. There he sang in choirs and sang as a soloist. He had the opportunity to work with Fernando Ortiz and was also able to share professionally with figures such as Merceditas Valdés and Jesús Pérez. Later, in the nineteen-fifties, the group changed its name to Rapsodia Negra, performing numerous times on important radio and television programs such as Cabaret Regalías, "It Happened This Way", Jueves de Partagás, Voices of Cuba, among others, as well as recording two albums: He Lives Well and Guaguasones.

In 1959 he traveled to Mexico with the company of Luis Trápaga and there he performed in the Lírico, Nuevo Ideal and Bellas Artes theaters, and in the Los Globos cabaret. In 1979 he performed alongside pianist Odilio Urfé at Carnegie Hall in New York. In 1982 he participated, together with Urfé, in the Diaspora Festival No. 3, held in Paramaribo, Surinam. He sang in occasional duets with Paulina Álvarez. He worked extensively with lyrical song accompanied by great pianists such as Odilio Urfé, Frank Emilio Flyn, Nelson Camacho and José Lauzán. He also participated in several productions of Cecilia Valdés, playing the role of Pedro, the slave who flees, they search for him in the mountains and then he commits suicide on stage. Fabio Landa and Leo Brouwer were the ones who suggested to director Roberto Blanco that he use him for this. He was in the productions of 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1982.

His artistic career lasted almost seventy years, during which he was a singer capable of equally defending folklore, lyrical art or trovadorism.

After his retirement he dedicated himself to training singers and performed some duets with personalities of Cuban music such as Barbarito Diez, Laíto Sureda, Pablo Milanés and Edesio Alejandro, among others.
Edesio Alejandro has expressed: "Adriano Rodríguez is for me and for many people, one of the most important voices of Cuban culture and at the same time, an unrecognized performer".
Puerto Rican Danny Rivera has expressed: "He is one of the most splendid icons of Cuban trovadorism, that I was selected to be here is a privilege".

Adriano Rodríguez recorded with Silvio Rodríguez on the album Once Upon a Time: "The Song of Trovadorism"; come with it our farewell to that elder brother of Cuban music.

Adriano Rodríguez passed away in La Habana at the age of 91

Awards and Distinctions
Distinction for Cuban Culture.
Alejo Carpentier Medal awarded by the Council of State.
La Gitana Tropical.
Honorary Coin of the Municipal Government of Habana del Este.
Distinction September 28.
Raúl Gómez García Medal.
Amadeo Roldán Diploma.
Pablo Prize awarded by the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Cultural Center.
National Music Prize 2013.