Chucho Valdés and Paquito D'Rivera announce participation in the Pamplona Festival

February 20, 2022

Chucho Valdés and Paquito D'Rivera will meet again to tour together on the world tour 'Chucho Valdés & Paquito D'Rivera Reunion Sextet'. A tour that will have one of its stops at the Baluarte de Pamplona. The event will be on June 23 at 7:30 p.m.

The history of deep friendship and shared musical adventures between pianist and composer Chucho Valdés and saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Paquito D'Rivera dates back more than 60 years.

In recent decades, their paths have barely crossed, but now Chucho and Paquito come together again for the release of a new album, I Missed You Too, and a world tour.

This reunion will be accompanied by a lineup that includes Diego Urcola (trumpet and valve trombone), Armando Gola (upright bass and electric bass), Dafnis Prieto (drums) and Roberto Jr. Vizcaíno (percussion). The repertoire contains old hits, some of which are already standards of Latin Jazz, classics from the Latin American repertoire, and also new compositions.

Chucho Valdés is considered one of the best pianists in the world and certainly the most important jazz figure currently in Cuba. Founder of the group Irakere. His interpretive quality has been recognized internationally with the granting of the status of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Victoria in Canada, and by that of Havana, and the presentation of the Félix Varela Medal of Cuba, the keys to the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Madison and Neuilly in the United States and that of Ponce in Puerto Rico.

For his part, Paquito D'Rivera is a Cuban jazz musician, clarinetist and alto, tenor and soprano saxophonist who has won 7 Grammy Awards to date. Currently Paquito lives in North Bergen, New Jersey, with his wife, singer Brenda Feliciano. He directs the International Jazz Festival of El Tambo in Uruguay each year. In 2000 he published in Spain a memoir Mi vida saxual with a prologue by Guillermo Cabrera Infante. Additionally, he has published a novel: Oh! La Habana which recounts the artistic atmosphere of Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s.