La casa
de la plena
Tito Matos
La Casa de la Plena Tito Matos is a space dedicated to the history of the Puerto Rican plena and its performers.
TITO
MATOS
Tito played all types of panderetas, bomba drums and congas, but he was especially good with the requinto, the pandero used for soloing and improvisation. His speed and cadence created a distinctive type of sound that changed the way plena is performed today…
Ramón
lópez
Ramón was an artisan, researcher, educator and cultural anthropologist from Barranquitas. He gifted his collection shortly before passing away to Tito Matos; this collection is at the origins of La casa de la plena.
LA
Casa
In 2015 Matos created in a storefront location, La JUNTA (The Board), a cultural center where he taught plena to the community. Destroyed in 2017 by Hurricane María, it was reborn in May of 2021 when he curated La casa de la plena (The House of Plena), a historical exhibition at the Taller Comunidad La Goyco, in the Calle Loíza of his hometown of Santurce.
Plena
Plena is an urban musical genre with African roots created by the Puerto Rican working class. There are only approximations of its origin: to the south of the big island, with voices that point to the Guayama area and others -the most- pointing to Ponce as its birthplace; sometime after the 1880s, but more likely during the early 20th century.
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