3 de la Habana |
English / Español |
Germán David Pinelli Leader, composer, vocals, guitar, bass Germán David Pinelli is the founder of 3 de la Habana and the multi-talented leader of the group. He plays guitar and bass, plus he composes and sings along with his wife, Ana Maria Páez, and his brother, Ari Pinelli. "I'm actually the third generation of the Pinelli family to take up the arts as a profession," says Germán. "My grandfather is the most famous of us all. He was a prominent journalist and actor, and one of the first to sing opera in Cuba. He is most remembered, I think, as an announcer and commentator, first on radio and then on television. When he died, his funeral was attended by thousands." Germán's father, Tony Pinelli, formed a famous Cuban vocal quartet, Los Cañas, and has had a very successful career as an award-winning composer and music producer. Tony Pinelli's success in performing and packaging Cuban music has taken him around the world. Says Germán: "My father was a real inspiration for 3 de la Habana, helping us with vocal arrangements and producing our first album and some of the others that followed. He has been a professional model for me as well." Germán credits his father for his deep love of the music traditions of Cuba, a love evident in the performances and albums produced by 3 de la Habana. "Our small apartment in Havana was always filled with music," Germán remembers, "and filled with musicians and singers. But even as children, my brother and I were constantly exposed to the very best that Cuban music has to offer. Many of the performers in our living room were themselves living legends of Cuban music history." Germán has a good deal of his father's entrepreneurial spirit and Tony's refusal to fit nicely into any one particular professional box. Germán also inherited his father's wanderlust: 3 de la Habana has aggressively traveled the world since the group was formed in the early 1990s. The group's first trip abroad was to Barcelona in 1993. They returned three times more to Spain and, in 1998, they were in Greece on a cultural exchange program. In 2000, 3 de la Habana was invited to Australia, just after the Sydney Olympic Games. They performed at one Australian festival before an audience of 50,000 and then appeared twice in concert at the Sydney Opera House, the first Cuban group ever in that venue. Says Germán: "We returned to the United States in 2003 for shows in Buffalo, New York and in Cleveland, Ohio. We are now living and performing in Miami. We have been particularly pleased that American audiences are as adventurous as we are in trying new forms, new rhythms." "Sometimes, in our travels, we have felt a bit like a museum piece, asked to perform only the classics from pre-Revolutionary days," says Germán. "But Latin music is vibrant and constantly changing. Our future as a musical group is only assured if we reflect and contribute to that wonderful, vibrant, progressive future." |
Band Members Germán |