Joaquín Núñez & HABANA Safari
Cuban-Canadian percussionist, drummer, composer and educator Joaquín Núñez Hidalgo has been surrounded by music from an early age.
Born and raised in Cuba, Joaquín began playing percussion at five. His father, Porfirio Núñez, was a singer and guitarist who performed with Brisas de Nipe, one of Cuba's long-established orchestras. Growing up in that environment gave him an early connection to Afro-Cuban rhythms and the popular sounds of the island.
His professional career started in Cuba, where he performed at festivals and shared stages with musicians such as Emiliano Salvador and Juan Pablo Torres. In 1999, he moved to Toronto and soon became part of Canada's jazz, Latin and world-music scenes.
Over the years, Joaquín has worked and performed with Hilario Durán, Jane Bunnett, Eddie Bullen, Luis Mario Ochoa, David Foster, Sarah McLachlan and The Tenors, among many others. His recording credits include Hilario Durán's From the Heart, a JUNO-winning and Grammy-nominated Latin jazz album, and David Buchbinder's JUNO-winning Odessa/Havana project Walk to the Sea.
His career has also taken him beyond Canada. Joaquín joined Italian artist Zucchero's La Sesión Cubana project and its 2013 world tour as a percussionist. He has also performed in Canadian musical theatre productions including Dirty Dancing, Beauty and the Beast, Tina – The Musical and Disney's The Lion King.
Teaching has also become an important part of his career in Canada. Joaquín is a faculty member at Humber Polytechnic, where he leads the Brazilian Ensemble. He founded the Percussion Department at Sistema Toronto and has served as a lead instructor and facilitator for the Toronto District School Board's Cuban-Brazilian Drumming Program. At St. Michael's College School, he founded and directed the Rumba Squad Program for several years. He is also the founder of Rumberos Drums Academy, where he continues to share Afro-Cuban and Latin percussion with new generations of musicians.
In 2007, Joaquín founded Habana Safari in Toronto, bringing together his Cuban roots, years of collaboration with musicians from different backgrounds, and his own ideas as a composer and bandleader.
The ensemble explores different periods of Cuban music, drawing from danza, danzón, son, changüí and rumba while bringing these traditions into contemporary Afro-Cuban jazz. Rather than simply recreating older styles, Habana Safari uses them as the starting point for something new.
That approach is at the heart of Ruta de la Clave, released by Joaquín Núñez & Habana Safari on Lulaworld Records in 2025.
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Explore Ruta de la Clave for featured tracks, the complete tracklist and album credits.
The clave sits at the centre of the album, serving as the thread connecting the different sounds Joaquín explores throughout the recording. Developed over several years, Ruta de la Clave features nine original compositions, including Mi Changüí, Danzón Sin Tumbao, Rumba de Solar and Suite Columbia.
Cuban pianist Dayramir González is a key collaborator on the album, contributing piano, keyboards and arrangements. The recording also features Marta Elena, Joanna Majoko and Dyalis Núñez-Machado on vocals; Roberto Riverón and Paco Luviano on bass; Alexander Brown on trumpet and flugelhorn; Jeff King and Luis Deniz on saxophones; Bill McBirnie on flute; Colleen Allen on clarinet; and Esteban Vargas on violin and viola, with Joaquín on drums and percussion. Together, they bring percussion, horns, strings, voices and jazz improvisation into the sound of Habana Safari.
More than two decades after making Toronto his home, Joaquín remains closely connected to his Cuban roots. Today, Habana Safari and Ruta de la Clave bring that connection into his music, combining tradition with new ideas.
