Iluminado Davila Medina

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Iluminado Davila Medina (July 1, 1918 – June 7, 2021) was a Puerto Rican musician. He was a cuatrista.

Biography[]

Davila Medina was born in Morovis, Puerto Rico, the son of Jose Davila Ortega, also a cuatro musician, and Joaquina Medina Guzman. He had two sisters, older sister Elisa and younger sister Josefa, and a brother, Juan, who was older than him by one year.[1] At the age of 17, he began listening to a radio show on WKAQ radio. About 1945, Davila Medina was living in Vega Alta, a northern city in Puerto Rico near the country's capital of San Juan, when he decided to travel to San Juan and meet the musicians on that show, namely , , and three other musicians who formed a popular, Puerto Rican radio music band of the time.[2]

Davila Medina and his friends once had a band named "Grupo Idilio", which performed serenatas around Morovis.[3] At age 18, he was also a member of "Grupo Orion".[4] Around 1956, he joined a radio show named "Onda Morobena" (sic) in Arecibo, where he and his band played for three years. Davila Medina played lead and secondary cuatro at that time.

Davila Medina married a woman named Gladys;[4] the marriage lasted 70 years until her death and produced two sons and one daughter; both sons preceded him in death. One of them, "Junior", once joined Iluminado on a band that Iluminado created in 1983, "Conjunto Tipico Moroveno".

Davila Medina continued playing the cuatro well into his old age; during his 90s, he was still playing the cuatro on other artists' albums as well as on compilation albums.

He died on June 7, 2021 at the age of 102.[5]

Honors[]

On May 12, 2011, Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuno inaugurated the in Morovis,[6] a theater and musical structure that, since 2019, has a mosaic depicting its namesake,[7] reminiscent of the one dedicated to basketball player Mario Morales at the Mario Morales Coliseum in Guaynabo, another large Puerto Rican city.

Later on, the Puerto Rican Senate released a resolution on April 18, 2018, congratulating Davila Medina for his musical career and for him being about to turn 100 years old.[4]

See also[]

External links[]

  1. ^ "Iluminado Dávila Y Medina in the 1940 Census | Ancestry®". Ancestry.com.
  2. ^ "Iluminado Davila | El Proyecto del Cuatro /The Cuatro Project". www.cuatro-pr.org.
  3. ^ elvocero.com, Redacción. "Celebrarán los 100 años de cuatrista moroveño". El Vocero de Puerto Rico.
  4. ^ a b c https://www.senado.pr.gov/Legislations/rs0713-18.pdf
  5. ^ Muere el cuatrista Iluminado Dávila
  6. ^ "Reciben a Fortuño con fuegos artificiales". El Nuevo Día.
  7. ^ "Morovis celebrará los 101 años de cuatrista boricua". www.wapa.tv.
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