Reinaldo Montesinos Muñoz

Important and versatile Cuban musician, guitarist and orchestrator. He has accompanied representative figures of Cuban music such as Elena Burke, Ela Calvo, Fernando Álvarez.

He was born in Pinar del Río, and at the age of 9 began singing and playing guitar in his native city in a program on the radio station CMAB called "La Escuelita del Aire" performing Cuban and Mexican songs, and also performed in theaters and societies.

He began his professional life playing electric guitar in the combo "Los Corsarios" which dedicated themselves to Rock and Roll in 1957. He began his music studies in his native city with René Pérez and Che Tejera.

In 1961 he moved to Havana and in 1963 entered the Escuela de Superación Profesional Ignacio Cervantes as a student of Hilda Juliach Mon; in 1964 he was a student of the Seminario de Música Popular, directed by musicologist Odilio Urfé, where he received classes from Alejo Carpentier, Edgardo Martín, Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Vicente González Rubiera (Guyún), Alfredo Diez Nieto, Hilario González and Odilio Urfé.

Later he studied orchestra direction with Roberto Valdés Arnau and Adolfo Guzmán. He also received lessons from Jesús Ortega, Federico Smith, Italo Besa, Félix Guerrero and Víctor Zayas.

In the capital he worked as a guitarist with the ensemble Lira de La Habana, Restaurante 1830 with Moralitos, with Eddy Gaytán's jazz group and with Frank Domínguez. In 1963 he works with jazz groups such as Los Armónicos, Free American Jazz, los Batchá, Los 5, founding the Grupo 2 más 1 (later 3 más 1) and others.

In 1964 he joins as a guitarist and also played bass, ukulele, Hawaiian guitar, mandolin in the orchestra of the Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT), while working as an accompanying guitarist for, among others, Elena Burke, Ela Calvo, Fernando Álvarez, Annia Linares, Mireya Escalante and Elizabeth de Gracia.

He also plays alongside outstanding musicians such as Peruchín Justiz, Enriqueta Almanza, Guillermo Barreto, Frank Emilio, Cachao, Kike Hernández, Tata Güines, etc. He performed and recorded with Los Pachucos de Pacho Alonso, Orquesta de Elio Revé, Conjunto de Roberto Faz, Orquesta de Neno González and others.

In 1968 he founded the beat music group Los Mensajeros, and in 1970 the orchestra Base 96. He was a judge, orchestrator and orchestra director for national and international festivals and competitions, in which he obtained awards in both categories.

Already in 1970 he worked as a musical advisor for various television programs and in 1973 he began directing the Orquesta Jazz Band of the ICRT and later went on to direct the Orquesta de Formato Sinfónico of the same ICRT composed of 54 musicians. He has also directed the Banda Gigante del Sindicato de Músicos composed of 500 musicians and the choir of 2000 voices. On several occasions he directed the Orquesta de Música Moderna (Big Band) and for several years the Orquesta del Cabaret Tropicana.

Among the foreign artists to whom he has directed the orchestra are:
Mocedades
Luis Gardey
Lucía Artieri
Paco Michel
Carlos Cuevas
Vicente Garrido
Choco Orta
Sarita Montiel
Serafín Zubir
Alfredo Sadel
Sonia Silvestre
Yoshiro Hiroishi
Roberto Blanco

Since 1970 he maintains an average of 100 arrangements per year for large format orchestras and others using computer systems, for both major Cuban singers and foreign artists.

As a producer and musical director, he has worked for different record companies with countless phonographic productions both for Cuba and abroad, among which stand out:

Boleros, (by Annia Linares), the music of Frank Domínguez.
Elena Bourque.
Carretera Central with Omara Portuondo.
Beatriz Márquez
Leo Montesinos
Mundito González
Raúl Planas
El Jilguero de Cienfuegos
Trío Los Corales.
En la Intimidad (with Marcela Gutiérrez de Piñeres).
En la Habana de Noche (with Leo Montesinos).
Antología del Bolero I and II (with 12 singers).

As a composer he has created music for different cabaret shows such as:
Los Romanos Eran Así (Tropicana).
El Ferrocarril de la Alegría (Cabaret Caribe Hotel Habana Libre).
Show del Parisién (Hotel Nacional).
Cuba Cabaret (Hotel Platz de Munich) Germany.
Circo Nacional de Cuba.
Circo de Monsieur Dakott of Paris, France.

Among his compositions are different genres of Cuban and foreign popular music recorded by different orchestras and performers. Among them are:
Y no tienes tema, (co-author Orlando Alvarez)....Guapachá and the Quinteto de Chucho Valdés.
La primera carta, (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris)... Rolando Ojeda (Ojedita).
Canción de amor y primavera, (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris)... Rolando Ojeda (Ojedita).
El buen rosal, (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris).... Elizabeth de Gracia.
Laberinto, (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris).... Mirella Escalante as a duet with Fernandito Sánchez.
Leonor y el Sol, (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris)... Orquesta Base 96.
El jinete de los sueños (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris)... Mirella Escalante.
Esta es tu casa, yo soy tu hermano, (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris)...Orquesta Ritmo Oriental.
La canción de un recuerdo que olvidé, (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris)...Mirella Escalante.
Petere No. 1 (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris).... Orquesta Base 96.
Petere No. 2, (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris).... Orquesta Base 96.
Qué más da, (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris)... Marta Raventós.
Primer día de sol (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris)...Pablo Santamaría.
Canción a la Cenicienta (text by E. Pedraza Ginoris)...Fernandito Sánchez.
Amo el mar, (text by Alberto Vera)... Sergio Farías.
Habanera para dos, (text by Dimas Juantorena).Marusha and Sergio Farías.
En La Habana de Noche, (text by Helio Orovio)... Leo Montesinos.
Piel a piel, (text by Helio Orovio).... Leo Montesinos.
La vida, (text by Alfonso Quiñónes)....Leo Montesinos.
Pero en realidad no quiero, (text by Alfonso Quiñónes)...Leo Montesinos.
Por si acaso hay alguien, (text by Alfonso Quiñónes)...Marcela Gutiérrez de Piñeres, Orestes Macías and the Conjunto Caney.
Te ofrezco, (text by Alfonso Quiñónes)...Marcela Gutiérrez de Piñeres.
En la intimidad, (text by Marcela Gutiérrez de Piñeres)…Marcela Gutiérrez de Piñeres.

He has also composed concert music:
Folklorismo 1, (aleatoric work for symphony orchestra, batá drums and 6 claves).
Reina, (concerto for saxophones).
Blues in Red, (concerto for Big Band orchestra in 4 movements).
Punto Libre, (work for chamber orchestra and magnetic tape).
Punto para una jornada, (chamber orchestra).
Mi orisha, (Electroacoustic music).

He has composed music for radio station identification and presentation themes for both radio and TV programs, for documentaries and a German feature film, for animated TV cartoons and two film soundtracks ("La Jicotea Fea" and "El Tímido Almiquí"), these two from the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), as well as for novels and dramatized serials and several jingles.

International Tours
Peru.
Panama.
Mexico.
Spain.
France.
Bulgaria.
Soviet Union.
Czechoslovakia.
German Democratic Republic.
Mongolia.
Angola.

He has traveled as musical director of several shows such as:
Calor de Cuba.
Son de Cuba Tropicana México.
Tropicana al Gran Casino de Barcelona.
Havana Show, Cuba Cabaret.
Antología del Bolero.

Awards
He has also directed 12 orchestras abroad. With singers prepared by him, he has obtained the following awards:
Award for Best Performance (Festival de Dresden, Germany, with Pablo Santamaría).
Carolina Award for Best Performance and Award for Best Arrangement: With Sergio Farías in Los Hombres y el Mar in Rostock, Germany).
2nd Place in the OIRT Competition: With Las Hermanas Nuviola and Paz Luaces in Prague, Czechoslovakia).
Grand Prize: Festival Melodías Amigas with Marusha in Mongolia.
1st Prize: Festival Orfeo de Oro in Varna, Bulgaria with Marusha.
He also performed at the Festival Lira de Bratislava with Sergio Farías without obtaining any award.

Appointments
For 6 years he was President of the jury and musical director of the weekly TV program Todo el mundo canta (singer competition).
He was President of the Asociación Cubana de Compositores y Autores Musicales (ACCAM) in Havana, Cuba.
He was founder of the Concurso de la Canción Cubana Adolfo Guzmán, the Concurso de Boleros UNEAC and the Festival Habaneras in Havana.
He worked as an arranger at the Centro de Desarrollo y Difusión de la Música Cubana.
He has been a judge since 1970 in almost all song competitions in Cuba and in some foreign ones.

For several years he was a musical advisor for the TURARTE Company.

He was director of the Empresa Artística Adolfo Guzmán.
He is president of the section of popular music performers of the Asociación de Música of the UNEAC (Unión Nacional de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba).
He is musical director and vice president of the Festival Internacional Boleros de Oro (in Havana, Cuba).
Musical director of the International Boleros Festivals of Cartagena de Indias, Pereira and Bogotá (in Colombia).

Currently, in addition to directing the Orquesta del ICRT Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), he has his own group and accompanies on guitar several singers, mainly his daughter Leo Montesinos, Mundito González, Raquel Hernández and María Elena Pérez.

He has two books in preparation, one with the scores of the most famous boleros and another on guitar harmony with a dictionary of chords.