Manuel Monestel

Manuel Monestel (born 1950) is a musician, multi-instrumentalist, sociologist (with a postgraduate degree in arts and cultural research), composer, music director, record producer, musicological researcher, radio producer, essayist and writer; Costa Rican.

He has dedicated himself to the research and dissemination of popular music, especially that related to the African diaspora and the Afro-Caribbean heritage.

He has composed a hundred songs that have been performed and recorded by Cantoamérica, by himself as a soloist and by other artists. He has recorded 13 albums for Cantoamérica (group of which he is the leader) that are distributed in Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain and Germany. He also has 3 discs as a soloist

He has written more than thirty articles on music in specialized magazines and the book "Ritmo, Canción e Identidad" awarded by the IASPM.

For thirty years he has investigated the musical culture of the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and based on that experience he has produced innumerable concerts, talks, radio programs and courses on this subject. He has taught courses and talks at various Costa Rican universities such as UCR, UNA and UNED, and in North America at Cornell University, New York; Bowling Green University, Ohio; Loyola University, New Orleans and at the National Institute of Anthropology in Mexico.

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