The folkloric sounds of Puerto Rican music will be flowing through the halls of Lehman Center for the Performing Arts as it presents Victoria Sanabria, with Puerto Rico’s number one plena group, Plena Libre, on Saturday, Dec 4, at 8 p.m., with special guest, Prodigio Claudio.

Captivating and moving audiences over the course of a 26-year, 15-album career, Lehman Center officials say this fine-tuned ensemble of virtuoso musicians has only gotten better with age, as evidenced by their four recent GRAMMY® nominations and world-wide touring schedule.

Lehman Center officials said Victoria Sanabria was born in Guayama, Puerto Rico into a family of singers. Named “La Diosa de la Trova,” they said she is known for her sublime voice and ability for continuing the tradition of “peasant island trova jíbara song,” combined with improvisation and mixtures of musical genres.

 

They said Sanabria showed vocal talent from a young age, entering vocal competitions as a teenager and winning the title of National Troubadour from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. In 1995, she performed as a vocalist with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, and the following year, she was a guest artist opening for Marc Anthony’s Puerto Rican concerts.

 

According to Lehman Center officials, her first album as a soloist, Cánticos de Serranía, was recorded in 1999, and in the next eight years she released three more, including 2008’s Celebra Conmigo, featuring Andy Montañez and Andrés Jiménez as guest artists. That same year, she joined the world-wide Tribute to Héctor Lavoe concert tour.

 

In December 2009, they said Sanabria released her international, breakthrough album Criollo Con Salsa, in which she combined Puerto Rican folk music with salsa. The album contained several hits, including “10 Dias,” “Jibara Natural,” which featured Luis “Perico” Ortiz, and “No Te Quiero,” sung with reggaeton star, Ivy Queen.

 

2011 saw the release of the highly successful album, Boleros, which established Victoria as a major singer and a year later, she followed up with the release of Boleros II, which Lehman Center officials said is now considered a classic. Sanabria’s most recent releases are her live concert album, Trayectoria, which was recorded in Santurce in 2012, and 2016’s Música Mía.

 

Meanwhile, according to Lehman Center officials, Plena Libre, are masters of contemporary bomba and plena rhythms. Officials said the group brilliantly infuses the Afro-Puerto Rican rhythms of plena and bomba with other Caribbean rhythms in traditional and contemporary compositions to create an electrifying stage performance.

 

With a tight yet sensitive style, which balances the traditional with the contemporary, and the global and the local, Lehman Center officials said Plena Libre creates a brand of music and live performance that is both profoundly Puerto Rican and universally appealing.

“Filtering the sounds of various Afro-Caribbean forms like merengue and cumbia, and Afro-Cuban like mambo and salsa, this versatile collection of expert performers creates a celebratory spectacle and engaging sonic ecstasy,” they said. “Led by founder and bassist Gary Nuñez, Plena Libre is recognized for taking the once dormant Puerto Rican plena style of music and reclaiming it for a new generation of listeners to enjoy.”

 

Officials said the group became instantly popular in Puerto Rico, with National Geographic crediting Plena Libre, among other Puerto Rican acts, in “spearheading the Latin invasion of American popular music.” The group features vocalists singing in what Lehman Center officials said are “captivating, three and four-part harmonies which complement the group’s danceable, Afro-Rican compositions.”

 

They added that the group’s use of call-and-response, percussion and polyrhythms keeps each show feeling groovy and fresh. “Thrilling audiences around the world, from the Fez Festival in Morocco to the Playboy Jazz Festival, Plena Libre is a train that just keeps picking up steam, as it charges ahead in unexpected and exciting directions,” they said. “Plena Libre has recorded with notable musicians like pianist Eddie Palmieri, Papo Lucca, and Néstor Torres, among others.”

 

Finally, Lehman Center officials said Prodigio Claudio is an excellent cuatro player who was born in Hoboken, New Jersey to Puerto Rican parents, and who moved to Puerto Rico in 1977, where he settled in the town of Caguas. A cuatro is a Puerto Rican guitar.

 

Since childhood, they said he showed a great interest in the cuatro, and was enrolled in music classes with Tomas Roldan in Caguas. They said Prodigio started his musical career as the youngest child to accompany the Teatro Ramiro PR Acevedo Turin, and joined the Pleneros del Quinto Olivo at the age of 13.

 

Thereafter, officials said he’s been involved with El Gran Combo, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Raphy Leavitt, Bonny Cepeda, Elías López, Chamaco Ramirez, and Tavín Pumarejo. They said he now works to teach and deliver lectures in the United States on the Puerto Rican cuatro. He has recorded 11 albums as a soloist and was the first to make a cuatro instructional video in 1999.

 

Lehman Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. is supported, in part, with public funds through the SVOG Grant by the U.S. Small Business Administration, and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the New York City Council.

 

The 2021-2022 Season is also made possible through the sponsorships by The New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Department, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York State Legislature, Con Edison, Havana Café, and the Friends of Lehman Center.

 

Lehman Center for the Performing Arts is located on the campus of Lehman College/CUNY at 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, NY 10468. Tickets can be purchased at (718) 960-8833 or online at www.LehmanCenter.org. Proof of vaccination and masks is required.