The trailblazing Plena Libre has been thrilling international audiences for nearly three decades. Masters of the traditional Puerto Rican plena and bomba styles, Plena Libre fuses well-loved traditions with modern Afro-Caribbean influences, putting a new and always electrifying spin on this scintillating music. With mesmerizing hand drumming, raucous horns, and soaring three-part vocal harmonies, this multi-Grammy Award–nominated band always brings the heat.  

Captivating and moving audiences over the course of a 30-year, 15-album career, this fine-tuned, original band of 12 virtuoso musicians has only gotten better with age. Founder, bandleader and bassist Gary Nuñez and his band have revived the plena sound for a new generation, electrifying audiences with horns, drums and dance. Plena Libre, masters of contemporary bomba and plena, brilliantly infuses the Afro-Puerto Rican rhythms Plena and Bomba, with other Caribbean rhythms to their traditional and contemporary compositions, creating an electrifying stage performance.

Featuring three vocalists singing in lush three-part harmonies – with an aggressive, tight, yet sensitive style, which balances the traditional with the contemporary, the global and the local -, Plena Libre creates a brand of music and live performance that captivates the multi-cultured audience, invites to dance and to listen to their sound. They are Artist-in- Residence at the University of Chicago as they are recipients of the prestigious Don Michael Randel Award.

Filtering the sounds of various Afro-Caribbean forms, this versatile collection of expert performers created a celebratory spectacle and engaging sonic ecstasy. Thrilling audiences around the world, from the Fez Festival (in Morocco), Montreal Jazz Fest and to the Playboy Jazz Festival, Plena Libre is a train that just keeps picking up steam as it charges ahead in unexpected and exciting directions. Plena Libre has recorded with notable musicians like pianist Eddie Palmieri, Papo Lucca, and Nestor Torres, among others.

“They can rock the house with traditional singing and drumming, then turn around and lay down a smoking, jazz-heavy, Afro-Rican jam.”   - East Bay