La Rondallita

La Rondallita was a Venezuelan children’s vocal project that emerged from the Coral Infantil de Venezuela and was assembled in the mid-1970s for studio recordings built around Venezuelan Christmas and folk repertoire. Composer/producer Hugo Blanco (who had written “El Burrito de Belén,” also widely known as “Mi burrito sabanero”) worked with choir director and arranger Raúl Cabrera to shape the group’s choral sound, selecting child singers specifically for sessions that aimed to translate aguinaldo tradition into a polished, radio-friendly format. Their defining moment came with the recording of “El Burrito de Belén” in 1975, featuring an eight-year-old Ricardo Cuenci as the unmistakable lead voice, a performance that later became the best-known version of the song across much of Spanish-speaking Latin America. That recording anchored their early catalog and circulated widely on vinyl and later on reissues, helping establish La Rondallita as a seasonal reference point rather than a fixed touring band with a stable public lineup. Beyond the signature hit, the project’s releases documented the same choir-meets-folk approach on other traditional material and holiday staples, including the 1982 album Alegría de Navidad, and later compilations and digital reissues such as Navidad (2007).

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