Bomba y Plena
Richmond, VA
Kadencia is a band led by the father-son duo of Maurice Sanabria-Ortiz and Maurice “Tito” Sanabria. The band is dedicated to playing, promoting, and preserving Afro-Puerto Rican music. Kadencia was founded in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico in 2007. Since 2018, Kadencia calls Richmond, Virginia home. Kadencia's music and sounds pay homage and follow the traditions of bomba and plena from western Puerto Rico. The lyrics of its songs are narrative and describe various aspects of Puerto Rican society, culture, and traditions. Kadencia utilizes bomba and plena's long-rooted storytelling traditions to vividly capture multiple aspects of the Puerto Rican experience on the U.S. territory and on the U.S. mainland.
Kadencia’s full band and small ensemble have played at multiple festivals and concerts including performances at the Lincoln Memorial, Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, the University of Richmond, the Que Pasa Festival, Norfolk Latino Festival, the Smithsonian Postal Museum, Bridgewater College, the College of William & Mary, the Winter Blues Jazz Fest, and George Washington University.
Kadencia’s sophomore album En Otro Barrio was released in November 2022. The album contains ten original songs that capture stories from Puerto Rico’s history, culture, and society. Its songs also capture sentiments from the Puerto Rican experience in the diaspora. The album and its songs received great reviews and media coverage in the United States, Puerto Rico, and abroad. The first single, “Oye,” was named one of the Top 5 Non-Christmas Plena songs you need to listen by Noticel, a Puerto Rican digital newspaper. On January 1, 2023, En Otro Barrio was listed as one of the Top 20 Most Outstanding Albums made by Puerto Rican artists by Puerto Rico’s National Foundation for Popular Culture. This listing received national coverage and included multiple Grammy winners and nominees across multiple Latin genres. The album has received unpaid/organic coverage and air play in the United States, Puerto Rico, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Portugal, Mexico, Ecuador, Russia, and France. The band and three songs from En Otro Barrio were featured on Season 2 of the AppleTV+ series Swagger (based on the story of NBA superstar Kevin Durant).
In 2024, Kadencia will release a new live album featuring songs from Kadencia's first and second albums. The band has a calendar full of performances that will allow them to share Afro-Puerto Rican music with audiences across Virginia, Washington DC, North Carolina, and Florida.
Kadencia is certified by the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture as a performer of traditional Puerto Rican music and is a member of the Virginia Commission for the Arts’ Touring Directory. Kadencia is a resident artist at the Perkinson Center for the Arts and Education in Chesterfield, Virginia. The band remains active in the community by offering and sponsoring bomba and plena workshops and lectures to schools, universities, and performing arts organizations.