Reynaldo Armando Montalvo Vasallo

Troubadour, sociologist, writer, conductor and Cuban television scriptwriter. One of the most outstanding musicians in the new generation of troubadours in Cuba.

He graduated in 2012 from the Faculty of Philosophy and History at the University of La Habana and in 2016 from the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Literary Training Center.

He is a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) and the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS). He belongs to the artist catalog of the National Center for Popular Music of La Habana and the Bis Music record label.

He is Cuba's delegate for the international project Canto de todos.

He has published two studio albums, CD Lares (2013) and CD No se aprovechen (2019), both produced by Estudios Ojalá and featuring the participation of Silvio Rodríguez. He also has the live album Discurso de primavera (2021). All his recorded works have been released by the Bis Music record label.

Twenty-five of his songs are compiled in the book Postal de Peces (2011) by Ediciones Vigía, with a prologue by Vicente Feliú. He also has the booklets Pescador de eneros (2015) and Versos camino a casa (2016), the latter including a CD with a song performed by Rey Montalvo alongside Silvio Rodríguez.

He has collaborated as a columnist with various media outlets in his country and since August 2018 has hosted the program Entre Manos on Cuban television alongside troubadour Marta Campos.

In his more than ten years of musical career, he has performed on stages in Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and the People's Republic of China.

His father, Reynaldo Montalvo Carreras, studied guitar at the Conservatory of Music in Cárdenas. In May 1975 he joined the New Troubadour Movement in Matanzas as a member of the group Tehuantepec. He directed the group Amistad and simultaneously was part of the trio Nueva Era, which in 1982 won first place in the popular program of the time Todo el mundo canta.

In 1992 he founded the Trio Madrigal, and encouraged his son to sing during rehearsals and perform songs by Miguel Matamoros and other exponents of what is known as Traditional Troubadour Music.

Rey Montalvo entered the Vocational School of Art at age seven specializing in piano, where he remained for two academic years. In 1995 he joined to sing and perform in the newly created theater group Las Estaciones, directed by Rubén Darío Salazar. He participated in editions of the contest Cantándole al Sol, and in radio programs.

On Matanzas television, he was part of the cast of several children's programs (Soy feliz, Mi juego musical and Barquito de papel, in the latter with the character of Inspector Ramón)

At the Vocational Institute of Exact Sciences in Matanzas, at age fifteen, he founded the humorous group A sangre fría with two friends and participated with it in several amateur artist festivals of the FEEM. During that period he began to learn guitar in a self-taught manner and to compose.

The Troubadour
In 2006, on the stages of the city of Cárdenas, he began to present his songs in public with the support and encouragement of Tony Ávila and the group Nuestra América. He actively joined the Suerte de Cangrejos project in that city and participated in the Troubadour Meetings organized by the Museum A la Batalla de Ideas and the Patio de los Cangrejos, where he met Vicente Feliú and Pepe Ordás, who would subsequently support the budding career of the troubadour.

He entered the Sociology program at the University of La Habana in 2007 and immediately joined the amateur artists movement of the FEU, where he won awards at various levels. In La Habana he participated as a guest at concerts by Raúl Torres, Vicente Feliú, Pepe Ordás and Tony Ávila.

In 2008 he participated as a former Active Military Service recruit in the Expedition for Human Improvement, organized by Silvio Rodríguez at the South Combined Penitentiary Center in Matanzas.

He organized his first solo concerts in 2009 in the cities of Cárdenas and Matanzas with the support of Tony Ávila and Raúl Torres, and that same year founded the Mástil de guitarra project which included a radio program of the same name that Rey hosted and presentations throughout the province of Matanzas with the aim of promoting the work and contributions of the new generation of troubadours.

In 2011 he published his first songbook, Postal de Peces, with Editorial Vigía, and was the protagonist of the Canto de Todos concert at the Casa del Alba Cultural in La Habana. That same year he shared the stage with Silvio Rodríguez at an amateur artists festival at the University of La Habana and with composer Marta Valdés at the International Book Fair in the city of Matanzas.

At the suggestion of Silvio Rodríguez, in 2012, Rey Montalvo began recording his first album at Egrem's Studio 101 and at Estudios Ojalá, with musical production and arrangements by Emilio Vega. The CD Lares, with introductory words by Marta Valdés, was licensed with the Cuban label Colibrí and nominated for the 2014 Cubadisco Festival, but the phonogram was not released to the market until 2021 by the Bis Music record label.

In 2013 Rey Montalvo participated in two concerts as part of Silvio Rodríguez's tour through neighborhoods in Cuba, and in September held his A Guitarra Limpia concert organized by the Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau.

In that same 2013 he founded his regular space in the city of Matanzas, which he maintained for eight consecutive years on the second Friday of each month. Guest participants included, among many others, Gerardo Alfonso, Vicente Feliú, Pepe Ordás, Augusto Blanca, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Carlos Ruiz de la Tejera, La Trovuntivitis, Eduardo Sosa and Víctor Casaus.

In 2015 he joined the cultural exchange project promoted by the Centro Pablo de la Torriente Brau, Nuestra voz para vos, and traveled to Argentina accompanied by troubadour Yordan Romero. For three months he toured several cities in the country offering a joint performance first, and then solo. He performed in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario, Santa Fe, Mendoza, Goya, La Plata and Santiago del Estero, and shared performances with Teresa Parodi, Liliana Herrero, among other artists from that country. In 2016 he returned to Argentina with his De paso tour to present the phonogram Lares. The tour included many of the cities he had already visited, and also reached Tucumán for the first time.

In 2017 he began work on his second studio album, No se aprovechen, with the support of Silvio Rodríguez and Estudios Ojalá and Pepe Ordás and Estudios Guaicán. The phonogram was released in 2019 by the Bis Music record label and was presented on September 28 at the Theater of the National Museum of Fine Arts in La Habana. The concert was filmed for the subsequent release of the live album Discurso de primavera, which features four previously unreleased songs, as well as new versions of some included in his second phonogram. No se aprovechen was selected by the Cancioneros website as one of the fifteen essential albums of 2019.

In 2019 he traveled to Mexico invited to the XLVII Edition of the International Guitar Fair in Paracho, Mexico, and that same year participated in a meeting of young Latin Americans in the People's Republic of China.

In 2021 his first album Lares and his live album Discurso de primavera were officially released, both released by the Bis Music record label.

In 2022 he received the 50 Years of New Troubadour Movement medal, and was nominated for the Cubadisco Fair for his album Discurso de primavera.

Between November and December 2022 and January 2023, he returned to the stages of the South with his Summer Tour through Argentina and Chile, which included the cities of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza, Santiago de Chile, Valparaíso and Viña del Mar. In mid-2023 he was invited to the International Book Fair of Antofagasta, where he performed as a troubadour.

Other Endeavors
In 2012 Rey Montalvo graduated from the Sociology program at the University of La Habana with his thesis, Trovadores urgentes, su Representación Social de la Trova, drawing on Moscovici's theory to expose the motivations, affections, symbols and expectations of troubadours regarding their own movement. For two years, he continued this line of research as a member of the Research and Development Department of the Department of Culture in Matanzas. He published several articles on the subject in the Revista Matanzas and in one of the volumes of the Yearbook of Cultural Research.

In 2014 he began writing narrative fiction. In 2016 he entered the Narrative Techniques Course at the Onelio Jorge Cardoso Literary Training Center, and graduated at the end of that year. In 2017 he completed his first novel and interrupted writing to dedicate himself completely to his music career.

In 2015 he began collaborating with articles, commentaries and chronicles in the Semanario Girón of Matanzas, then in the Diario Juventud Rebelde and from 2016 in the Diario Granma.

In the summer of 2018 he began work as host of the television program Entre Manos, dedicated to promoting Hispanic American song, and in 2022 he began working as a scriptwriter.

In January 2019 he was elected national vice president of the Hermanos Saíz Association, following the III Congress of that artists organization, a position he held until December 2021.

During 2022, he was coordinator of the La Fábrica de Trova space at the En Guayabera cultural center and one of the organizers of the New Troubadour Day that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of the New Troubadour Movement.

From mid-2022 to year-end, he maintained a column on the Cubadebate website titled Cualquier pedacito de oro, to comment with vignettes on the realities of his country.

That same year he began editing his first novel, which was published in 2023 by Acercándonos Ediciones, from Argentina, with the title Después de volver.

In 2024 Rey Montalvo received an honorable mention in the Calendario Prize for his second novel No hay inviernos.

Official Discography
CD Sueños diminutos (2022) / collective children's music phonogram
CD/DVD Discurso de primavera (2021)
CD No se aprovechen (2019)
CD Lares (2013) (latest edition 2021)