New collaborations for Jose Hernando

Jose Hernando, Roberto Pla and Lucy Duran

I'm in London and happy to be back, but as soon as I landed I received a call from BBC Producer Helene Frisby telling me about doing a session with maestro Roberto Pla and his Latin ensemble for the World Routes Academy. I said definitely of course it would be an honour to play beside this maestro whom I’ve had the opportunity to play with before when I was a young boy. Helene also enquired whether it was possible to play with Diego La Verde who is a virtuoso Colombian harp player. I was excited and I went for it.

My first session at the Maida Vale studios with Roberto Pla and his big band was amazing. Combining the big band instruments such as the brass section and the salsa style with the Vallenato style accordion - which hasn’t been done before - sounded really good. We played Cali Pachanguero, a salsa classic, and Colombia Tierra Querida which is a cumbia. I really enjoyed it - I added my 'tumbao' to it: tumbao means 'feeling' and Alfonso the backing vocalist was very excited to see the fusion between these genres; he kept on saying how talented I was which gave me more positive energy to play with them - it was a great experience.

The next day we had the session with Diego La Verde, the Colombian harp player; this was in the 'La Bodeguita' Colombian restaurant in Elephant and Castle. We performed in front of the audience inside the restaurant and did a fusion between Janero and Vallenato, another interesting mix. This virtuoso player improvised with his heavenly sounding harp, and we both interacted well. The audience was surprised to see us there but they certainly enjoyed it as much as we did!

• Hear the session on the BBC iPlayer
• Visit the World Routes Academy page
• Visit Radio 3's World Music page