Irving Lara

If there is someone with a well-founded and hard-won history in Afro-Antillean music, in the last four decades, that is the great musician, arranger, composer and conductor Irving Lara. Originally from Las Choapas, Veracruz, Irving Lara, since he was ten he has been immersed in music. In 1970 he entered the National Conservatory of Music and a few years later he started an impeccable career in the sound universe with flavors of cane and sugar. It would be impossible in this space to list and comment on his career and great achievements, let's just mention the most outstanding. In the middle of the seventies it becomes part of La Sonora Veracruz and later with the group La Justicia. Already in the eighties, he forms his own band: Irving Lara and his Quemazón. With these groups he records six albums and performs a number of concerts and national and international tours. He also plays in famous festivals, where he alternates with artists such as Irakere, Enrique Jorrín's Orchestra, Los Van Van, Orquesta Aragón, Sonora Ponceña, among many others. From 1988 to 1998, El Rey del Sabor, as he began to know, created, ex professo, a virtuoso orchestra that accompanied, during a memorable decade, another majesty, The Queen of Salsa, Mrs. Celia Cruz. During his successful career, Irving Lara has participated (as a pianist, arranger, orchestra director and in recording albums) with: Eugenia León, Niurka, Tania Libertad, Marc Anthony, Manolo Muñoz, Daniel Santos, Celio González, Willie Colón, Oscar Chávez, Tito Puente, Carlos Lico, Maldita Vecindad, Amparo Montes, Johnny Pacheco, et cetera. In recent years he has taught music clinics and was instrumental, along with the talented Enrique Nery, recording the album Con sabor a México by the Big Band Jazz Orchestra, among other activities. Profile by DJ El Chino Solar Latin Club