Ricardo Aguirre

About Ricardo Aguirre

Ricardo Aguirre, El Monumental de la Gaita, is the most revered figure in the history of gaita zuliana. In the 1960s he transformed the genre from festive Christmas music into a vehicle for social and political protest, most famously with La Grey Zuliana, a plea to the patron saint on behalf of a neglected Maracaibo. His death in a car accident in 1969, at just 30, made him a martyr of Zulian culture, and his songs are sung every December to this day.