Salsa star Oscar D'Leon invites fans to London show

Legendary salsa singer Oscar D'Leon will perform with his full big band at London's Roundhouse on 3 November 2012 for a one-off concert that no Latin music lover should miss. As he says in this special video message to fans ahead of the show... it should be Sabroso!!
For full details of the concert and how to get tickets click here.

Salsa king Oscar D'Leon comes to London 3 November

One of the truly great legends of salsa music, Oscar D'Leon, will be bringing his swinging big band and his even bigger personality to London's Roundhouse on 3 November for a one-off concert that no Latin music lover should miss.

Organized by London-based promoters Como No!, the show features Oscar D'Leon's full Venezuelan band and will start with sets from top salsa DJs, including Javier La Rosa (Cuba), Johnny G (Colombia), Jose Luis (Venezuela), Lubi (Gallo del Norte), Dr Jim (Londres del Norte) and Rich (Londres del Sur).

Known as El Rey Leon (the Lion King), El Diablo de la Salsa (the Salsa Devil), and El Sonero Mayor (The Greatest Singer of Son) Oscar D'Leon is not only an impressive singer with a huge voice and a matching stage presence, but also a brilliant double bass player and a twinkle-toed dancer (even now as he reaches 70).

He has been setting concert halls alight across the world with blistering dance numbers and smooth boleros since he first emerged as a star in Venezuela in the 1970s.

Born in the poor barrio of Antimano, in the south of the capital city Caracas, Oscar D'Leon drove a bus before fame called with his first band Dimension Latina. Back in those days he had a massive afro to complement his equally impressive moustache.

Starting off with the gritty urban power of the trombone-heavy salsa dura that had emerged from the Latino barrios of New York in the late 60s, he went on to develop a show that included big band numbers from the golden era of 1950s Cuba - when his idol Beny More and the Sonora Matancera ruled the radio and the Mambo kings played songs of love in New York.

Nowadays, to keep up with changing tastes, he continues to add contemporary Caribbean rhythms like rap and reggaetton into the salsa-son cubano mix and his band of percussion players and brass are so well rehearsed from constant gigs around the world they can move seamlessly between old styles and rhythms.

The result is that an Oscar D'Leon gig feels like one long dance party.

This is the perfect opportunity for anybody who takes a salsa class to hear this music played by the best musicians in the business. You can always stay and home and listen to the CDs, but performing live Oscar D'Leon can fill a concert hall in the coldest part of the world with all the warmth and joy of a South American fiesta.

You also get to check out the local Latinos busting moves they don't teach you in school.

But whether you sing along at the front or shuffle along at the back, the only thing certain at an Oscar D'Leon concert is that standing still is not an option - the rollercoaster of Caribbean rhythms unleashed by the Venezuelan salsa king rumbas along to an infectious clave beat that will leave you dancing your way home.

Date: Saturday, 3 November, 8:30 pm
Venue: London's Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, Camden, NW1 8EH
Tickets: £25
For tickets: Contact the Roundhouse or Como No! or Ticket Web

Lloraras y Lloraras - Venezuelan Karaoke Part 1

To prepare you for the concert here are the words to Oscar D'Leon's most famous song "Lloraras" ("You Will Cry") so you can sing along at the gig (although as you can see in the video above Oscar loves to improvise during the chorus). As you might gather from the title, there's quite a lot of crying involved, I've translated the words into English so you get the full effect of this popular break-up song.

Lloraras (in English)
I know that you don't want me to love you,
You're always avoiding me somehow.
If I look for you over here, you pop up over there.
The only thing I want, is that you won't make me suffer anymore.

You will be sorry about your bad behavior,
My suffering will cost you dear.
You will cry and cry with no-one to console you,
And then you'll realize that when someone cheats on you it hurts.

Later on you'll come to ask for forgiveness,
But my heart won't remember you any more.
You will cry and cry with no-one to console you,
And then you'll realize that when someone cheats on you it hurts.
I swear.

You will cry, You will cry, You will cry (You will cry)
Like I suffered (You will cry)
Listen, you will cry (You will cry)
And no-one will understand you (You will cry)
All the bad things (You will cry)
Listen, you will pay (You will cry)

You will cry, You will cry (You will cry)
You will cry, You will cry (You will cry)

You made me suffer (You will cry)
Now I'm the one who's laughing (You will cry)
No, no, yes, yes (You will cry)
Now I will live (You will cry)
My life as I wish (You will cry)
I'm moving on (You will cry)
You will cry.
Take it away!!

Lloraras (in Spanish)
Se que tu no quieres, que yo a ti te quiera
siempre tu me esquivas de alguna manera
si te busco por aqui tu me sales por alla
lo unico que yo quiero es que no me hagas sufrir mas

Por tu mal comportamiento, te vas a arrepentir
muy caro tendras que pagar todo mi sufrimiemto
Lloraras y lloraras sin nadie que te consuele
y asi te daras de cuenta que si te enga?an duele

Y despues vendras a mi, pidiendome perdon
pero ya mi corazon, no se acuerda mas de ti
Lloraras y lloraras sin nadie que te consuele
y asi te daras de cuenta que si te engañan duele
Te lo juro que si!

Lloraras lloraras lloraras (Lloraras)
Como lo sufri yo (Lloraras)
Oye tu lloraras (Lloraras)
Nadie te comprendera (Lloraras)
Todo lo malo que hiciste (Lloraras)
Oye mira lo pagaras (Lloraras)
Lloraras Lloraras (Lloraras)
Lloraras Lloraras (Lloraras)
Tu me hiciste sufrir (Lloraras)
Ahora el que rie soy yo (Lloraras)
que no, que no, que si, que si (Lloraras)
Ahora yo voy a vivir (Lloraras)
Mi vida como yo quiero (Lloraras)
Echa palante ya me voy (Lloraras)
Lloraras
Llevatela!!

CD Review: Fiesta - Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra

"Fiesta" (Deutsche Grammophon) is one of those rare CDs that is so good you play it till it wears out - a classical music feast of Latin American compositions that ends with a rip-roaring rendition of Leonard Bernstein's "Mambo" from the musical "West Side Story".

The 190-strong Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela (SBYOV), led by the charismatic conductor Gustavo Dudamel, has electrified the usually staid world of classical music in the last few years, with sold out performances in all the major concert halls of Europe.

An appearance at the 2007 Proms at the Albert Hall in London, when the band came on dressed in Venezuela's national colours of blue, yellow, red and white ended with a 10 minute standing ovation.

The concert was a revelation for classical music fans in the UK and a huge boost for Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, who recorded "Fiesta" as a way of capturing the experience of listening to the orchestra live and give their fans who couldn't get tickets a taste of what it was like to be at the Albert Hall concert.

Fiesta is exactly the right word to describe the eight upbeat works which appear on the album, which all celebrate the vibrant energy of Latin America, the vast geography of the region, the legacy of conquest and some of the many dance rhythms that bring people across the divided continents together.

The best-known track on the CD is undoubtedly "Mambo", US composer Leonard Bernstein's evocation of the Puerto Rican migrant experience in the tenements of mid-1950s Harlem. Classical music fans will also have heard works by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera and Mexico's Silvestre Revuelatas.

But the revelation for most listeners will be the works by the Venezuelans Inocente Carreno, Antonio Estevez, Aldemaro Romero and Evencio Castellanos.

Many of these compositions evoke the folk music of Venezuela's vast seasonally flooded plains, known as Los Llanos, where barefoot cowboys herd cattle past small lakes filled with caymans and piranas, and where white ibis share the water holes with capybaras.

Romero's "Fuga con Pajarillo", for example, interweaves a classical fugue with the galloping rhythms of the "pajarillo" folk dance, while Estevez's "Melodia en el Llano" is slower and more nostalgic.

Dudamel has said of the piece: "It's very impressionistic, influenced by Debussy, slow, with beautiful melodies inside different colours."

The CD comes out at a good time for the SBYOV, who have just begun their five-day residency at the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre in London. The excitement around the orchestra is close to fever pitch and tickets for all the concerts sold out immediately, even for the rehearsals and the shows by the brass section.

The first reviews of the Royal Festival Hall shows have been gushing:

"Never was an invading army more welcome," said Michael Church, writing in the Independent newspaper.

"Is this the best orchestra in the world? No. But the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra is classical music's hottest ticket, and with good reason," said Erica Jeal who gave the concert five stars in The Guardian.

"... there is a symbiosis here between conductor and ensemble that is quite electric," she concluded.

The youth orchestra's ability to affect social change in extremely deprived areas has not gone unnoticed either.

Gustavo Dudamel, speaking to the BBC, said the aims of the youth orchestra went beyond making magnificent music: "When you have around your life, drugs, crime, the best that you can give to a kid is an instrument. Then they can change their lives."

That philosophy looks set to spread. Projects in both developed and developing nations are currently underway to set up similar youth orchestras based on the incredibly succesful El Sistema model created by Venezuelan economist and philanthropist Jose Antonio Abreu in the 1970s.

Abreu realized that putting classical instruments into the hands of young children from the poorest shantytowns and teaching them to work together in a large orchestra gave them a sense of worth and the opportunity to change their lives.

Listen to "Fiesta" and you can hear that hope for a better future come alive.

Track Listing
Sensemaya (Silvestre Revueltas, Mexico)
Margariteña (Inocente Carreno, Venezuela)
Mediodia en el Llano (Antonio Estevez, Venezuela)
Danzon No. 2 (Arturo Marquez, Mexico)
Fuga con Pajarillo (Aldemaro Romero, Venezuela)
Estancia Suite (Alberto Ginastera, Argentina)
1. Los Trabajadores Agricolas
2. Danza del Trigo
3. Los Peones de Hacienda
4. Danza Final (Malambo)
Santa Cruz de Pacairigua (Evencio Castellanos, Venezuela)
Mambo Symphonic Dance from "West Side Story" (Leonard Bernstein, USA)

Video: Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra performing Mambo at the Albert Hall in 2007

Video: Gustavo Dudamel interviewed at the Proms in 2007

To download tracks from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's latest album "Fiesta" click here: