Rafael de la Torre Guerrero

Composer singer, guitarist and comedian, founder of the Nueva Trova, member of the UNEAC.

He began his musical studies in 1960, at the age of 9 with professor Carmelo Álvarez and later at the Conservatory of professor González Aullé (author of the Amorosa Guajira) where he studied up to the fifth year of violin, Solfeo and Theory.

In subsequent years he was a student of Juan Elosegui, Luis Carbonell, with whom he studied solfeo and interpretation of the repertoire. He studied singing with professor Jorge Luis Pacheco, also at the Ignacio Cervantes Professional Advancement School and later with actor and singer Mario Fernández.

In 1969 while serving in the military, by chance at the Managua camp where Silvio Rodríguez, three years earlier, had also been. It was in that military unit where he made his first songs, on an old piano in the Amphitheater. The first song was a bolero called "Distancia", with a great influence from traditional bolero.

In the following years, he sang with the Trio of the Pre-University of Camaguey, where he also won awards and mentions. Together with a group of outstanding musicians from the Camagüey symphony orchestra, he founded the Agramonte group, an ensemble with a chamber orchestra format, also part of the Nueva Trova.

In 1977, like other members of the Nueva Trova, he traveled to the Republic of Angola and remained there until 1979, participating in cultural activities in different regions of that country. He also sang at the Luanda 78 song festival and later in the Popular Republic of Congo and in Sao Tome and Príncipe, returning to these places on several occasions after 1985.

In 1981, together with the Manguare group, Xiomara Laugart and Alberto Tosca, he traveled to Berlin to participate in the Song Festival, to which he returned in 1984 with the Guaicán Group in the winter (February) and summer (August) editions of that year.

In 1992 he participated in the International Music Festival in Turkey (Istanbul) and later performed a tour throughout the country invited by the event organizers. In 2003 he was invited to the Cosquín Festival with Ibrahim Ferrer Jr. and the Clave Cubana group.

Rafael arrived in Argentina in 1993. Upon his arrival "Everything was very fast. I had never seen a bife de chorizo... Because we have very little cattle tradition: if all the cows that are here we sent over there, we wouldn't fit on the island", he explains with his peculiar and constant sense of humor, which also has something musical, something sung about it.

So the following year Rafael was already settled in Buenos Aires, in a relationship with Patricia. And soon the son would arrive, Santiago ("who is more porteño than the Obelisco"). Twenty-five years have passed and since then he has maintained a semi-formal relationship with Havana as its artistic ambassador (he is a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba). And on Fridays and Saturdays he performs at the Cuban restaurant Ron y Son, in Balvanera, where he does what he likes most: "pick up the guitar and sing" sones and boleros, music that not only pulses but that he studies. "It's 35 years of work and 39 countries traveled: since I had hair until now I have been researching", he summarizes.

Rafael has performed with Dancing Mood, Omara Portuondo, Mayito Rivera, Pedro Calvo and many other international artists.

With approximately 200 songs, some recorded by different Cuban musical groups, he received the 1984 National Music Prize and was anthologized in 1999 in "the best of the 80s in Cuban music" Anthology of Cuban Music, distributed by Pony Music (Mexico).

He recorded his first solo album in Argentina in 1998 with his own songs and those of other Cuban authors. Matamoros, Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, Augusto Blanca and Noel Nicola, among others. And another in 2002 with Ibrahim Ferrer Jr. and the Clave Cubana Group.

He has taken his music to Luanda, Berlin, Nicaragua, Turkey, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain, France, Switzerland, Angola, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, Poland, Congo, Poland, Turkey, Germany, Uruguay, Argentina, Austria, etc.

He acts in the film "Al fin el mar...." of Argentine production, with Enrique Pinti, Audry Gutiérrez, etc., made in 2003.

He has shared the stage with Silvio Rodríguez, Mercedes Sosa, Pablo Milanés, Noel Nicola, León Gieco, Víctor Heredia, Ibrahim Ferrer, Dante Spinetta, Luis Salinas, Augusto Blanca, Liuba Maria Hevia, Alejandro García Virulo.

For 18 years he was part of the Clave Cubana band (formed by a mix of Cubans and Argentines), with which he has received nominations for the Gardel Awards.

Rafael died in Buenos Aires after a unsuccessful struggle against Covid-19.