Margarita Lecuona

  Margarita Lecuona was a Cuban songwriter and singer of great successes in the first half of the 20th century. It was her artistic taste that led her to the piano, the guitar, the dance and to cultivate her voice.
Born in Havana on 18 April 1910, Lecuona was the daughter of Eugenio Lecuona, the Cuban consul in New York. She attended the Colegio Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes and the Colegio Sepúlveda in Havana before embarking on her secondary education at the Instituto de La Habana which she left after her first two years. She studied singing under Julia Lucignani and the piano under Eulalia Santana before attending the Escuela de Guitarra de Pro-Arte Musical to study the guitar under Clara Romero de Nicola. She studied dance at the Escuela de Ballet under the ballet master Nikolai Yavorsky, performing in a number of his works.

In 1930, while still studying, she wrote "Soñadora" which she sang playing the guitar. In 1942 she formed together with Alicia Yanes (guitar and second) and Coralia Burguet (guitar and cousin), the group Lecuona Cuban Girls, debuting at the National Casino, they also achieved performances at the Hotel Sevilla, in Sans Souci, on the radio, and in the Encanto and Campoamor Theaters, immediately obtaining a contract in the interior and abroad.

She was a multi-talented artist. In her show -Tabú- she was both the composer and performer, the costume designer, the manager, the number editor and the director.

She went on to marry the Argentine actor Pepe Armil in 1947 and moved to Buenos Aires where she settled in 1957. From there she travelled to Chile, Uruguay Bolivia, Peru, Brazil and Mexico, performing on radio as well as on the stage. In 1969, she joined her family in the United States. She died in New Jersey in 1981