Orlando de la Rosa Valenzuela

Composer, pianist, director of vocal groups. Author of Nuestras vidas, No vale la pena and Anoche hablé con la luna, among other pieces considered classics of bolero.

He was born in La Habana. He studied solfège and music theory with harpist José "Pachencho" Arango, and learned piano from his mother Eduviges Valenzuela, daughter of the renowned orchestra director Raimundo Valenzuela. He continued his musical training at the Conservatorio Félix E. Alpízar and received lessons from Ernesto Lecuona.

In 1935 he joined the Asociación de Artistas Teatrales de Cuba. He worked as a repertory pianist at the CMQ Radio station and at the Teatro Alkázar, under the orchestral direction of Rodrigo Prats.

In 1936 he worked as pianist in Lecuona's orchestra at the premiere of the operetta-revue Lola Cruz at the Teatro Principal de la Comedia. On the same stage, as pianist, he performed in the staging of Tomás Bretón's zarzuela La Verbena de la Paloma.

He participated in several Lecuona concerts alongside other notable Cuban pianists. He became known as a composer in 1939 with the piece titled Mi primera canción. His boleros Arbolito and Tu llegada also belong to that first period.

His early creations were notable for the fluidity and independence of the melodic line in relation to the rhythm, an aspect that set them apart from traditional bolero and signaled an important change in the genre, a path also traveled during that era by other composer-pianists, such as René Touzet, Julio Gutiérrez, Isolina Carrillo, Adolfo Guzmán and Mario Fernández Porta.

He participated in 1944 in several recordings with the Orquesta Casino de la Playa with tenor René Cabel, who premiered some of his compositions. Other interpreters, backed by this orchestra, introduced his works at the beginning of that decade, which were later widely distributed.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Orlando de la Rosa became one of the most sought-after accompanying pianists in Latin America. He worked alongside very famous figures of the era such as Mexicans José Mojica, Pedro Vargas, Chela Campos and Toña la Negra. He accompanied at the piano Cuban singers such as Rita Montaner, Vilma Valle, Esther Borja, Olga Guillot and Elena Burke, to whom he dedicated the song-bolero Tu alma.

In 1945 Pedro Vargas brought to record Nuestras vidas and Toña la Negra, No vale la pena; which immediately became hits in much of Latin America and the Caribbean.

He toured artistically through various countries in South and North America. Among his performances as a pianist, his presentation at the Theatre Palace of the Beverly Country Club, Cincinnati, United States with Concerto Varsoviano by Richard Addinsell, supported by Betty Houston's orchestra, stood out.

In 1948, at the initiative of singers Adalberto del Río, Elena Burke and Aurelio Reinoso –a group to which Roberto Barceló soon joined–, the Cuarteto de Orlando de la Rosa was organized, which debuted at the RHC Cadena Azul radio station alongside Argentine singer Libertad Lamarque and declaimer and musician Luis Carbonell, who assisted him in arranging harmonic voices in the group's early days.

That year De la Rosa made a series of recordings with an instrumental quintet that included pianist Felo Bergaza, with Pepe Reyes and Carlos Quintana as singers. They recorded for the RCA Victor label his compositions such as No vayas a pensar, Nuestro encuentro, Nuestras vidas, Te ruego no me abandones and La mazucamba. In 1949 he made a new series of recordings as pianist with Adolfo Guzmán's orchestra, with Pepe Reyes as vocalist.

With his quartet (Elena Burke, Omara Portuondo, Aurelio Reinoso and Roberto Barceló) he performed in the United States in several theaters and cabarets in Nueva York. In that city the ensemble was hired by Frank Sennet's artistic representation agency; they toured stages in several states of the Union and also performed in Canadian cities.

Upon returning to La Habana, the Cuarteto de Orlando de la Rosa was requested to perform in the best radio broadcasting spaces and from 1950 onwards, television. They performed alongside notable national and foreign figures in the Havana theaters Payret, Astral, Warner, América, Campoamor and Encanto. They completed a successful season at the cabaret Tropicana and toured Colombia, Santo Domingo and Venezuela. The female members were replaced around 1952 by Sara Corona and Julia Lombida. The quartet was dissolved in 1955.

De la Rosa recorded in México in the early 1950s a ten-inch long-playing record for the Musart label titled Rapsodia Panamericana in which he revealed his gifts as a pianist: he performed at the piano, continuously, about twenty well-known songs of the hemisphere, from Argentine tangos, Cuban rumbas, boleros and songs, cha-cha-chas and mambos, in the form of a medley.

He performed at the cabaret Tropicana in numerous shows by choreographer Roderico Neyra (Rodney) with whom he was a close musical collaborator.

His songs acquired a new dimension in the 1940s and 1950s in their craftsmanship and harmonic procedures. At the request of Esther Borja he wrote in 1945 Para cantarle a mi amor, considered an extraordinary lied, which has been part of Cuban concert song programs for many years. Among his pieces elaborated in this manner is Un nombre en la arena, which found in contralto Elena Burke a great interpreter.

In a certain area of his work one observes the influence of the beguine-song and blues: A lo mejor, Así es mi corazón, Aventura, Cansancio, Fácil and Te me vas, are examples of this.

Although he ventured into other genres with success, such as mambo (Me voy para New York, No me busques más), conga (Por allí, por allá, por acá and Conga bocuca), bolero-mambo (Esto es felicidad, composed in collaboration with Bobby Collazo and José Carbó Menéndez, a number also known as Down in Cuba Town), song and bolero were his main vehicles of expression. He wrote works considered anthological such as Anoche hablé con la luna, Angustia, Amor en mi corazón, Déjame, Escaso amor, Estoy sentimental, La luna frente al mar, Mi corazón es para ti, Mi pobre amor, No vale la pena, Qué emoción, Que no se te olvide, Resignación, Si te dicen, Tú me has engañado, Una noche and Vieja luna.

He wrote La canción de mis canciones with fragments (skillfully stitched together, even suggested musically) and titles of some of his best-known compositions. This number served as an introduction theme for decades to singer Olga Guillot.

Among the interpreters of Orlando de la Rosa's work are counted, besides those mentioned before, American-French vedette Josephine Baker, who met him during her first visit to La Habana in 1951 and recorded some of his compositions; Dominicans Lope Balaguer, Damirón, Billo Frómeta (Billo´s Caracas Boys); Puerto Ricans Bobby Capó, Ruth Fernández, Arturo Cortés, Lucy Fabery, Gilberto Monroig, Rafael Muñoz, Santos Colón; Venezuelans Alfredo Sadel, Oscar D´León, Felipe Pirela, Gisela Guedes; Mexicans Los Tres Ases, El Negro Peregrino and his trio, Chela Campos, Ana María González, Salvador García; Chileans Carmen Prieto, Sonia and Miriam; Colombian Bob Toledo; Cubans Don Barreto, Antonio Machín, Celia Cruz, Orlando Vallejo, Machito and his Afro-Cubans, Pacho Alonso, Vicentico Valdés, Minín Bujones, Rolando Laserie, Roberto Ledesma, Los Rivero, Los Ruffino, Miguel D´Gonzalo, Olga Rivero, Doris de la Torre, Celeste Mendoza, Mercy Cantillo, the Conjunto Casino, las Hermanas Lago, las Hermanas Márquez, Aurora Lincheta, Reinaldo Henríquez, Luis García, Jack Sagué, Mary Esquivel, Tata Ramos, Wilfredo Fernández, and the orchestras Neno González, América del 55 and Enrique Jorrín, among many others.

In 1956 Orlando de la Rosa participated as pianist in the orchestra directed by Julio Gutiérrez in a series of recordings by the duo Cabrisas Farach, with a repertoire spanning more than half a century of the best Cuban songbook. It was one of his last artistic works.

On November 15, 1957 he died in La Habana.