A crash course in Cuban rhythm

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culture 1:03 A crash course in Cuban rhythm

By:

Luke Hayes

9 Sep 2025 381

Shortly before their outdoor performance at the Center for the Arts, legendary musician Kiki Valera and his band joined the Virginia Tech percussion ensemble for a workshop on the rhythms of son cubano.

We're so fortunate to have Kiki Valera and his band come and perform for us today and do a fantastic workshop for the students in the Virginia Tech Percussion Ensemble. The genre they were working on with us today was called Son Cubano, which is a traditional kind of folk music from Cuba. They're intricate and they're layered and they're always locked in with each other. And then they're singing while they're doing it and dancing while they're doing it. It's going to tie right into the music that we're studying this semester and going to be performing. So it's exciting that they can work with these musicians from Cuba and be able to really pick up these instruments and feel that they're playing them in an authentic manner, which I think is really important as a percussionist, that we know the instrument, the background, how it's traditionally played.

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