Los Salsabrosos

Unsurprisingly, Los Salsabrosos met salsa dancing. We are a part of a tight-knit community of rueda dancers in Berkeley, California. We would meet every Thursday in front of the biology building on the UC Berkeley, where groups would stop and record an average of 20-30 dancers syncronously dancing in time to the rueda leader calling out “Enchufla!” or “Ni pa ti ni pa mi!” while everyone in the circle claps, stomps, and gyrates like a well-oiled machine.

Some of us in this group realized that we had musical proclivities, such as singing, playing guitar, or piano. We would meet every Saturday to enhance our understanding of the musicality underlying our favorite genre. We started out performing for our friends but rapidly began expanding our group, and our audience. Recent performances include concerts at The Omni Studios and private graduation parties.

Member Biographies:

Alonso Marco is the Cuban Tres player; he recently fell in love with this instrument and transferred his guitar skills to it. He is passionate about music composition and learning more about salsa music. In his free time he is a robotics researcher.

Kirsten Isabel is a the lead vocalist. A Miami Cuban, passionate about exploring the origins of this music (e.g. we hosted an event called “Salsa and Storytelling” at Stanford, which explores the history of famous Cuban songs). Her interest in music started with piano lessions in her early teens, and has since evolved toward singing and performance. Her other passion is studying genomics.

Daniel Leong is an Asian-American sax player from the Pacific Northwest who has been playing music since 5 years old. He has played in played in several jazz big bands, funk cover bands, and a rap/hip-hop group throughout his life. While trained in jazz and classical, he loves music from all over the world and fell in love with salsa in college. Daniel is currently attending graduate school for his doctorate in clinical psychology.

Biographies for Sergio Cabada, Alice Schmitz, and Karl Dray coming soon!

If no power is available at the venue (e.g. outdoor/beach), we can rent a generator for the performance for an extra fee.