ENRIQUE PLÁ   

Enrique Plá was born in Santa Clara, Cuba in 1949 and grew up in a household where music was encouraged. As young as four he showed a keen interest in adapting anything to hand in the house as a percussion instrument – including saucepans, frying pans, doors and buckets. He even constructed a home made drumkit using his sister’s upturned piano stool and a home-made pedal, with which he would play along to records of not only the most popular Latin artists of the day, but also those of Bill Haley, Johnny Mathis y Elvis Presley!

He moved to Havana in 1964 to complete music studies at the National School of the Arts and soon became a figure on the local music scene. After playing in many groups, including military bands during a period of compulsory military service, in 1974 he joined a group of young Cuban musicians, including Arturo Sandoval, Paquito d’Rivera, Chucho Valdes and others, who had recently embarked on an experimental project with the unusual name of “Irakere”. Winning a Grammy in 1979, and being nominated twice more in 1980 and 1998, Irakere went on to become a Jazz legend, playing all over the World in major concert halls and festivals and recording more than 40 albums to date.

Plá's powerful, driving rhythms have been widely recognized as one of the key foundations of Irakere’s music, and during his work with the group he has also had the opportunity to accompany not only giants of Latin Music such as Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanes, Emiliano Salvador, Ruben Blades, Willie Colon and Ray Barreto, but has also shared the stage with Jazz greats such as Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea , Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Maynard Ferguson, Gerry Mulligan, Louis Bellson, Max Roach, and the bands of Wynton and Branford Marsalis.

As a dedicated teacher of drumming to Cuba’s younger generation of musicians, he has been a key influence on the careers of many who have come after him. His former students have gone on to play with luminaries such as Michel Camilo, Roy Hargrove, Tito Puente, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Michael Brecker, Dizzy Gillespie and Santana, on whose Grammy-winning album “Supernatural” Enrique’s former student Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez played, and which has sold more than 24 million copies worldwide.