Viento de Agua is a contemporary bomba and

plena Plena is a genre of music and dance native to Puerto Rico. Origins The plena genre originated in Barrio San Antón, Ponce, Puerto Rico, around 1900. It was influenced by the bomba style of music. Originally, sung texts were not associated wit ...

band, created in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1997. Bomba and plena are musical genres within the Afro-Puerto Rican tradition. Their first album, ''De Puerto Rico al Mundo'', was selected among the Top 10 Latin albums of the year by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. The band was created by Puerto Rican musicians Tito Matos (percussion, vocals, composer, arranger), Ricardo Pons (flute, saxs, arranger) and Alberto Toro (sax, arranger). It is a 13 member band that includes drums, bass and a powerful brass section. It has two published albums, one of them, ''Materia Prima'' (Raw Material) was produced by the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

's music label Folkways Records. They have performed at

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

Out of Doors, Celebrate Brooklyn! and the

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, and other venues. The group's percussionists, led by Tito Matos, recorded

Ricky Martin Enrique Martín Morales (born December 24, 1971), known professionally as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, and actor. He is known for his musical versatility, with his Ricky Martin albums discography, discography spanning ...

's single "

Pégate "Pégate" (English: "Get Closer") is the second single from Ricky Martin's first live album, ''MTV Unplugged'' (2006). It was released on December 19, 2006. The song was written by Martin, Roy Tavaré and Tommy Torres, and produced by Torres. C ...

", the singer's only plena recording.

External links

Viento de Agua's homepageSmithsonian Folkways reviews Viento de Agua.
* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/11/arts/music-playlist-ethiopian-idol-if-james-brown-were-a-muezzin.html?scp=1&sq=viento%20de%20agua&st=cse The New York Times reviews Materia Prima* Viento de Agua Unplugged with Ricky Martin Musical groups established in 1997 Musical groups from New York City Puerto Rican musical groups Plena {{US-band-stub