Life & Career
Valenzuela studied music under his father, Lucas: he learnt piano, viola, percussion, but was first employed by Orquesta Flor de Cuba as a trombonist. He was playing for La Flor in the Alhambra theatre in Havana in 1869, when a group of Spanish anti-revolutionary volunteers attacked the theatre and its patrons. That night the theatre had been performing anti-colonial works for the benefit of rebels declaring Cuban independence, in what became known as the Ten Years' War.
He established his band from the remains of Flor de Cuba after the death of its leader, Juan de Dios Alfonso. Like its forebear, the orchestra was a típica in format, based mostly on wind instruments. It was, like Flor de Cuba, the most popular típica of its day. Valenzuela's bands played everywhere in Havana. They played for balls, the theatre, carnavals, and for all racial groups and all levels of society.
Raimundo contributed financially and personally to the development of the Cuban War of Independence in 1895. When Raimundo died in 1905, his brother Pablo Valenzuela became Director of the orchestra.
Valenzuela's compositions were mostly danzones, such as El negro bueno, María Belen, Los empleados de Tacón; and the zarzuela La mulata María.
Read more about this topic: Raimundo Valenzuela
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or career:
“In the life of the human spirit, words are action, much more so than many of us may realize who live in countries where freedom of expression is taken for granted. The leaders of totalitarian nations understand this very well. The proof is that words are precisely the action for which dissidents in those countries are being persecuted.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)