Orlando Santana, the bandleader and musical director of La Makina, has made room in his busy schedule filled with studio recordings to talk about the most interesting topics of his career and, of course, the group that has given him more fame.

The Dominican artist has built an interesting career that led to his aforementioned group, which was founded in Borinquén (the name given to Puerto Rico before the arrival of the Spanish). Naturally, the genre by which La Makina is best known is merengue, implying that the Dominican Republic is still present in mind and heart.

Orlando’s Beginnings in Music

Orlando started his story by saying that music had a significant presence in his life because his father, Santiago Santana, was a music teacher who taught in their own home. He taught all types of instruments such as the saxophone, trumpet, flute, piano, bandoneon, clarinet, guitar, and many more. Additionally, he also knew about harmony, solfège (sung), and solfège (spoken).

This led to his son learning to play instruments at a very young age and being interested in this way of life. 

Orlando’s Music Education

When Orlando moved to Miami, he took private piano lessons for a while, just as his father did with his students, but it was from Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz whom he really learned. He attended their church and took advantage of his visits to receive some piano lessons from Richie, while his brother David Santana, who was already a veteran musician, bought him his first saxophone and taught him many other tricks of the trade.

Early experiences as a paid professional

As for the beginning of his professional practice, Orlando, as a 15-year-old boy, started with the orchestra Dioni Fernández y El Equipo, from which the great Sergio Vargas emerged. In fact, they entered together a television channel (Color Visión, Channel 9) on the same day in Santo Domingo. This group is still active today, and Sergio Vargas’s own brother, Caqui Vargas, is currently part of it.

Some time later, he had the opportunity to perform along with Wilfrido Vargas, which he describes as an incredible experience, since Vargas’s orchestra had a very challenging repertoire and he had to prepare himself very well in order to play along with the merengue exponents and his musicians. Orlando came on as a substitute replacing his brother on some tours, where he showed he had the capacity to keep up with their pace and improvise just like Wilfrido did so with ease on stage.

Among the most important things this time taught him, the artist mentioned discipline, the importance of always practicing his instruments, and a permanent focus on what he wanted to achieve. Another thing he mentioned was the significant improvement in his ability to improvise and release new material constantly.

He also learned a lot from Toño Rosario, Peter Cruz, Cuco Valoy, Ramón Orlando, and Elías Santana (Orlando’s first cousin and trumpeter for Conjunto Quisqueya). With all of them, he also came to play both merengue and other genres. 

How La Makina Band was founded

Orlando met Fernando Colón in Toño Rosario’s orchestra, while he was a saxophonist, and Fernando entered as a bassist. At the same time, Orlando was writing some arrangements for Los Sabrosos del Merengue, and as it so happens that Fernando was also working with them, so they were always in constant contact.

When Orlando decided to found an orchestra, it was he who called him and accepted his proposal. That was when both artists founded La Makina in 1996, though the process started a year earlier when they set up a company for that purpose.

His Role as producer and director

Regarding his role as producer and director of La Makina, he points out the importance of preparing and studying to exercise these areas of music. In his case, he had already spent many years working on important record productions, including those he did together with his cousin Cesar Cuesta, with whom he formed a small orchestra that covered songs by very famous bands. He created his own musical arrangements for these new versions to differentiate them from the original songs and wrote scores for other musicians.

In addition, he served as music producer for Grupomanía and wrote songs for artists such as Toño Rosario, Elvis Crespo, Oscarito, Manny Manuel, and many others.

Current Members of La Makina

Of the original members of La Makina, the only one left is Orlando himself, but he has been joined by other equally-talented musicians, including Carlitos Rivera and his own son, Anderson Santana.

Current projects

This conversation had been delayed a few times due to how busy Orlando was in the studio working on new music, so obviously we had to ask what it was all about.

He told us that he and the rest of the group were working on a remastering of La Makina’s greatest hits, but with other arrangements and a fresh color. They also plan to include songs recorded by other artists but written by Orlando for them. He did not want to say what these would be so they would be a surprise for the audience.

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