San Juan, .- Puerto Rico becomes the musical epicenter of the Caribbean with the celebration of National Salsa Day, an annual event that will gather thousands of fans of this genre today at the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in the capital.
This new edition of National Salsa Day will open with a performance by Manolo Rodríguez and his orchestra, which will be followed by a group of soneros with Frankie Vázquez, Pichie Pérez, Pedro Arroyo and Yolanda Rivera.
The ensemble Chaney, Mulenze and Pedro Brull, Charlie Aponte and orchestra, Don Perignon and the Puerto Rican with Víctor Manuelle are other groups that will meet at the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in Sanjuanero, where a classic event takes place every year at this time in the musical calendar of the Caribbean island.
Luis Perico Ortiz with Roberto Lugo, Conjunto Clásico with Tito Nieves, and Pirulo y la Tribu, one of the most representative modern salsa bands in Puerto Rico, also perform today.
The National Salsa Day was created in 1984 due to the concern of holding an event where the talent of this popular music, its composers and performers, was recognized, to present it to the large public loving this tropical genre deeply rooted in Puerto Rico from the the sixties of the last century.
The importance of the genre is such on the island that Law 100 establishes that the third Sunday of March is destined for the National Salsa Day in Puerto Rico, which this year celebrates its 36th anniversary.
The first edition of the National Salsa Day was held in 1983.
Since then, artists like Ismael Rivera, Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón, Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz, Gilberto Santa Rosa and La Sonora Ponceña, among others, have performed in this initiative.
Although salsa is a rhythm that has its origin in the streets of New York, Puerto Ricans consider it as their own. (EFEUSA)
