Quienes Somos

Errol L. Montes Pizarro nació en Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico. Obtuvo doctorado en matemáticas en Cornell University, disciplina en la que es catedrático de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Cayey, donde también forma parte del Instituto de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias. Además de matemático también es investigador de historia de la música africana y caribeña, con estudios hechos en la Fábrica de Ideas del Centro de Estudios Afro-Orientales de la Universidad Federal de Bahía, San Salvador, Brasil. Es miembro fundador del Colectivo de Estudios Musicales de Puerto Rico. Desde octubre de 2001 es productor y anfitrión del programa Rumba Africana para Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico, www.wrtu.pr , programa que retransmite la estación Radio Colectiva de Cartagena de Indías, Colombia, la radio universitaria de la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur, México y la estación en internet Música Maestro Radio. En abril de 2018 publicó el libro Más ramas que raíces: Diálogos musicales entre el Caribe y el continente africano que fue galardonado con el Premio Nacional de Literatura en la categoría de Investigación y Crítica correspondiente al 2019 otorgado por el Instituto de Literatura Puertorriqueña, Universidad de Puerto Rico. Algunas de sus otras publicaciones están disponibles en: https://cayey.academia.edu/ErrolMontesPizarro

Noraliz Ruiz Caraballo holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology-Musicology from Kent State University. Her research focuses on the Puerto Rican lutes: cuatro, tiple and bordonúa; particularly in the continuity and change of the instruments’ tradition and performance practice. She has also conducted research about underground music scenes in Puerto Rico and the production of indie pop, electronic and new music in the archipelago.

Noraliz has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in the popular music program of the Inter American University of Puerto Rico. She is a member of the electronic indie band Balún and has performed in music festivals in the US, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. In 2020 the band Balún was featured on NPR Tiny Desk, where Noraliz can be seen playing the Puerto Rican cuatro. She is also a co-founder of the children’s music group Acopladitos.

Jaime Bofill Calero received his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology and Music Theory from the University of Arizona. Bofill Calero currently serves as Assistant Professor at the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, where he also directs the Instituto de Investigación Musical de Puerto Rico y del Caribe (IMPCA) and the academic journal Musiké. In 2014 he was awarded the Otto Mayer Serra Award for his article, “Bomba, danza calipso y merengue: creación del espacio social en las Fiestas de Santiago Apostól de Loiza” (Latin American Music Review). His short documentary “Sounds of the Street Vendors, Havana Cuba” (2015) received various distinctions in film festivals worldwide, and is currently working on another audiovisual project “Bajando por la montaña: Ecology of Gaita Music”. Bofill’s interdisciplinary research is currently focused on creating awareness about the relationships between music, sound and the environment. In 2019 he contributed articles to the special edition of Musiké dedicated to Hurricane María and Climate Change titled: “Conciencias Sonoras: Music, Art and Climate Change-An Introduction” and “Bajando por la montaña: Ecology of Colombian Gaita Music”. His articles “Creative Processes in Improvising Jíbaro Décima” as well as “Gaita, ecología y la diversidad biocultural del Caribe colombiano” are both forthcoming in edited volumes.

Noel Allende-Goitía is an independent scholar and researcher. At the Metropolitan Campus of the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, he coordinated the Puerto Rican Music Studies and Research Center and the music graduate program. He has a B.M. in Voice from the Conservatorio de Musica de Puerto Rico and an M.A. in History from the University of Puerto Rico. He made a postgraduate study in Musicology at the Center of Studies and Development on Cuban Music (1992), in Cuba, with Zoila Gómez. He holds a Ph. D in Music with a major in composition and a minor in Ethnomusicology from Michigan State University. He was a research fellow at the African Diaspora Research Project under the late Dr. Ruth S. Hamilton leadership. Allende-Goitía has published books on Puerto Rico music’s social and cultural history, music instruction, and music historiography. He has presented his works at national and international conferences in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Jamaica, Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Spain, the United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, Mexico, and Ghana.

Hugo Viera Vargas holds a Ph.D. in Latin American History from Indiana University, and currently, is Assistant Professor of Caribbean and Latin American Studies and Music at New College of Florida. Between 2008 and 2018, he taught at the Universidad Metropolitana and the University of Puerto Rico. In 2018 Viera-Vargas was the researcher for the Banco Popular de Puerto Rico music special, Más de un siglo: 125 años de música en Puerto Rico. Viera-Vargas research and teaching focus on the intersection of race, gender, colonialism, and musical expressions in Puerto Rican and Caribbean societies. He has published in Latin American Music Review, Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Musiké, Caribbean Studies, and Revista Cruce