CubaPLUS Magazine

Giraldo Piloto, an outstanding Cuban percussionist, is also the author of numerous pieces that have become hits and have been covered by soloists and groups on the international scene.

He comes from a musical family. His grandfather was a musician, his father an important and well-known composer, his mother was the founder of the National School of Art Instructors, his brother, uncles, cousins and several of his nephews and nieces are all involved in music.

"I grew up in a musical environment and from a very young age I began to receive piano lessons from my mother, until I entered the Alejandro García Caturla conservatory in the Cuban capital, and graduated from the National School of Art in 1980 as a percussionist,” he recalled in conversation with CubaPLUS Guyana.

From then on, his professional life began. He was first a percussionist in the orchestra of the famed Tropicana cabaret until 1988, when he became a member of NG La Banda, founded by the talented Cuban musician José Luis Cortés, winner of the 2017 National Music Prize. Between 1992 and 1994 he worked as musical director of Isaac Delgado's group, and in 1995 he established his own group, Klimax.

The band, founded with the aim of cultivating popular dance music and Latin jazz, has been a kind of school for various figures in the island's music environment, with several awards for its record production and performances on numerous stages in America and Europe.

Since 2000, Piloto has been the promoter and president of the Fiesta del Tambor or Havana Rhythm and Dance, an annual festival that brings together notable national and international percussionists in homage to the life and work of Guillermo Barreto, his uncle, who was one of the best drummers in Cuba in the last century.

According to his fans, Giraldo Piloto "is the Messi of drums and musical arrangements". For him, music is everything: "Music unites, with it you love and you can decide what to do with your life."