ROLAND GUERRERO
Congas/Percussion
Website: rolandguerrero.com
Tel:(347) 661-5154
Email: rolandguerrero@mac.com

Born in New York, Roland is a descendant of the Garifuna of Honduras. Roland is an alumnus of The Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division where he studied classical percussion under a full scholarship.

In addition to leading his own groups, as a freelance musician Roland has worked extensively on the New York music scene in various genres. Roland has toured internationally with Nigerian superstar Femi Kuti (the son of the legendary musical pioneer and creator of Afro Beat, Fela) as well as recording with Grammy Award winning rap artist, Andre 3000 of Outkast.

Roland was a member of the orchestra on Broadway and for the National Touring Company of Walt Disney’s “The Lion King” and has also performed on network television with NBC’s Saturday Night Live Band and on CBS as part of a tribute to mambo legend Tito Puente in a program entitled “Sounds of Harlem”, as well as having performed, recorded, and toured internationally in the bands of numerous masters of jazz and latin music, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (which included a collaboration with Wynton on some of the percussion orchestrations for his Millenium composition “All Rise”, performed by the LCJO and The New York Philharmonic), Chico O’Farrill’s Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra (featured in the film “Calle 54” by Fernando Trueba), saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, trombonist and conch shell master Steve Turre, steel pan master Andy Narrell, vocalists Jon Lucien, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Rene Marie, bassists Andy Gonzalez and Charles Fambrough , vibraphonist Dave Samuels, flutist Dave Valentin, guitarist Hiram Bullock, pianist Onaje Allen Gumbs and legendary conga master Mongo Santamaria, just to name a few.

Roland currently performs with The Chico O’Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, The Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra Septet directed by Arturo O’Farrill, The Roy Hargrove Big Band and on occasion with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra directed by Wynton Marsalis, as well as performing with numerous other artists throughout the world.

As an instructor and lecturer Roland has conducted workshops and master classes in Afro -Latin hand drumming at the Jazzmobile Jazz Workshop in Harlem, has been on the staff at the Harlem School of the Arts, the faculty of The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music in Flushing and The New School Jazz and Contemporary music program at the Parsons School of Design in New York.