Gilberto Santa Rosa in Continuous Innovation and Tour

After concluding his Broadway debut in “Forever Tango”, Gilberto Santa Rosa immediately continued his busy agenda with a series of presentations and concerts.

Gilberto Santa Rosa Stars in Broadway’s “Forever Tango”

This past July Gilberto had the opportunity to star in the Broadway play “Forever Tango”, where he had to opportunity to sing (and dance) some Tango standards, but also sing some of his popular Salsa music hit songs in a Tango format. Gilberto gets chance to showcase Tango versions of “Perdoname”, “Amor Mio No Te Vayas”, and “Que Alguien Me Diga”.

This was Broadway debut for Gilberto, which gives him one more big feather in his cap of groundbreaking achievements. Gilberto Santa Rosa, along with Luis Enrique, where the first Salsa music artists to appear in Puerto Rico’s Centro de Bellas Artes. Years later, he was one of the few Salsa music artists to appear and record a live presentation in New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

Broadway Not 1st Acting Gig for Gilberto Santa Rosa

Gilberto Santa Rosa is not the 1st “Salsero” in Broadway (Ruben Blades and Marc Anthony participated in Paul Simon’s “The Capeman” in 1998), and is also not strange to acting, be that in front of cameras or in front of a Live audience. Santa Rosa has participated in various theater plays in Puerto Rico, starting with “La Pareja Dispareja” with Puerto Rican producer Luisito Vigoreaux. He also had a small role in an Argentine TV soap opera (“tele-novela”) where he also sang the theme song.

More recently, Gilberto Santa Rosa has hosted a TV reality music discovery show in Panama titled “Pelaos con Salsa” which aims to discover new youth talent in that Latin American country.

Gilberto the Continual Innovator

For me, one of the marks of a great artist is their artistic curiosity and growth. Sometime we might not like some of the new directions of an artist (many Salsa music fans didn’t like when Ruben Blades recorded the trilogy of “folk” albums “La Rosa de los Vientos”, “Tiempos”, and “Mundo”). But the contrary is also true; I hate an artists that does the same thing time and time again, afraid of changing the formula even a bit because it is so commercially successful. Instead of artists, they have more in common with widget manufacturers.

Gilberto Santa Rosa has always pushed the envelope, although staying at arms reach of his Salsa music roots. After the breakup of his official band, he began to freelance which gave him the ability to try different orchestra formats and experiment with different sounds.

He put together the “Salsa Sinfonica” concerts, which he recorded in Caracas, Venezuela, and then took to several countries. He did a themed album in homage of “Tito Rodriguez”; Santa Rosa also the duets album “Irrepetible” and more recently had the show “Las Damas del Caballero” where he would perform with the all-female Colombian band “D’Caché”, and went on to add some all-female “coros” in his latest album “Gilberto Santa Rosa”.

Gilberto has also collaborated wisely with fellow artists and Salsa singers. Santa Rosa did the bohemians shows “Cantando y Contando” with Puerto Rican crooner Chucho Avellanet, where they will mix songs with stories (Gilbertito has always been a great story teller). Gilberto also did similar shows and a recording with Salsa music star Victor Manuelle, and did the shows “Una Sola Salsa” with Panamanian Salsa music icon Ruben Blades.

So if you can say one thing about Gilberto Santa Rosa, is that he is continuously innovating; looking for new ways to present his craft to his fans, to avoid falling in the same thing over again.