Charanga Del Norte

“Charanga del Norte” (Charanga from the North) was set up in 1998 in Leeds by the bandleader/flautist Sue Miller. They are a 12 piece group of Leeds and London musicians who play classic Cuban dance music (son, mambo, cha cha cha) in the classic "charanga" style featuring flute, violins/viola/cello, piano, bass, congas, timbales, hand percussion and vocalists.

For those unfamiliar with "charanga", it's a fusion of European musical styles and instrumentation with African rhythms and percussion instruments. Charanga's roots are in "danzon" music which evolved in the 19th century in Havana. In the 1940s, danzon and charanga were modernised and gave birth to the "mambo" and by the 1950s, charanga would spread to New York, taking the mambo and it's slower cousin the cha-cha-cha to the Big Apple. Charanga became hugely popular there with the Latin American diaspora communities as well as the non-Latin mambo dancing crowd and a New…