Valencia

From children’s radio to Onda Nueva

At nine, Aldemaro Romero was already singing on the children’s programme of La Voz de Carabobo in Valencia. His father Rafael was a musician and taught him early lessons; by fourteen, Aldemaro had moved to Caracas, where he found work at the piano.

His later recordings travelled much further. In New York he worked with RCA, and towards the end of the 1960s he developed Onda Nueva, a style drawing on Venezuelan joropo alongside jazz and Brazilian music. Drummer Frank Hernández helped establish its rhythmic approach.

Romero also wrote “De repente”, a love song in which the singer describes joy arriving so suddenly that past and present blur. The recording on Música del Recuerdo para Ti offers one introduction to the composer who began singing on the radio in Valencia.