Alma Llanera is a popular Joropo song composed by Pedro Elías Gutiérrez and with lyrics of Rafael Bolívar Coronado. It was part of a zarzuela whose premiere was on September 19, 1914 at the Teatro Municipal de Caracas.

Alma Llanera is considered as a Venezuela's unofficial second national anthem. It is a tradition in Venezuela to end any social reunion or party with the intonation of Alma Llanera. The OSV (Venezuela Symphony Orchestra) made a beautiful^{[peacock term]} arrangement of this piece of music to commemorate the 75 years of this widely popular song.

Today, Alma Llanera is considered^{[by whom?]} as a Latin America landmark song and has been performed by many famous singers all over the world such as the Spanish tenor, Plácido Domingo.

The original lyrics of the Alma Llanera are as follows:

Yo nací en esta ribera
del Arauca vibrador,
soy hermano de la espuma,
de las garzas, de las rosas,
soy hermano de la espuma,
de las garzas, de las rosas
y del sol, y del sol.

Me arrulló la viva Diana
de la brisa en el palmar,
y por eso tengo el alma
como el alma primorosa,
y por eso tengo el alma
como el alma primorosa
del cristal, del cristal.

Juan Diego Flórez Salom (born January 13, 1973 in Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in bel canto operas. On June 4, 2007, he received his country's highest decoration, the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Sol del Perú.

Juan Diego Flórez was born in Lima, Peru, on January 13, 1973 where his father, Rubén Flórez, was a noted guitarist and singer of Peruvian popular and criolla music. In an interview in the Peruvian newspaper Ojo, Flórez recounted his early days when his mother managed a pub with live music and he worked as a replacement singer whenever the main attraction called in sick. "It was a tremendous experience for me, since most of those who were regulars at the pub were of a certain age, so I had to be ready to sing anything from huayños to Elvis Presley music and, in my mind, that served me a great deal because, in the final analysis, any music that is well structured—whether it is jazz, opera, or pop—is good music".

Initially intending to pursue a career in popular music, he entered the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Lima at the age of 17. His classical voice emerged in the course of his studies there under Maestro Andrés Santa María. During this time, he became a member of the Coro Nacional of Peru and sang as a soloist in Mozart's Coronation Mass and Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle.

Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin or Juan Diego (1474–May 30, 1548) was, according to Mexican Catholic tradition, an indigenous Mexican who reported a Marian apparition, Our Lady of Guadalupe, in 1531. The apparition has had a significant impact on the spread of the Catholic faith within Mexico. The Roman Catholic Church canonized him in 2002, as its first indigenous American saint.

The reality of Juan Diego's existence has been questioned by a number of experts on the early religious history of New Spain including Bernardino de Sahagun, Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta, Stafford Poole, Louise Burkhart and David Brading, who argue that there is a complete lack of sources about Juan Diego's existence prior to the publication of the Nican Mopohua a century later, in 1649 (they do not accept the validity of the Codex Escalada as historical evidence). Notwithstanding these doubts, the findings of an interdisciplinary study, by nearly two dozen experts involving a prominent Mexican university and a noted American scholar of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican linguistics and anthropology, all indicated authenticity of the document and 16th century origin.

Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez (born January 26, 1981) is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is the principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Gothenburg, Sweden, and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Los Angeles, California. Dudamel is also the artistic director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela.

Dudamel was born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, the son of a trombonist and a voice teacher. He studied music from an early age, becoming involved with El Sistema, the famous Venezuelan musical education program, and took up the violin at age ten. He soon began to study composition. He attended the Jacinto Lara Conservatory, where he was taught the violin by José Luis Jiménez. He then went on to work with José Francisco del Castillo at the Latin-American Violin Academy. He began to study conducting in 1995, first with Rodolfo Saglimbeni, then later with José Antonio Abreu. In 1999, he was appointed music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, the national youth orchestra of Venezuela, and toured several countries. He attended Charles Dutoit's master class in Buenos Aires in 2002, and worked as assistant for Simon Rattle in Berlin and Salzburg in 2003.

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco (July 24, 1783 – December 17, 1830), commonly known as Simón Bolívar (Spanish pronunciation: [siˈmom boˈliβar]), was a Venezuelan military and political leader. Together with José de San Martín, he played a key role in Hispanic-Spanish America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire, and is today considered one of the most influential politicians in American history.

Following the triumph over the Spanish Monarchy, Bolívar participated in the foundation of the first union of independent nations in Hispanic-America, a republic, which was named Gran Colombia, of which he was president from 1819 to 1830. Bolívar remains regarded in Hispanic-America as a hero, visionary, revolutionary, and liberator. During his lifetime, he led Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia to independence, and helped lay the foundations for democratic ideology in much of Latin America.

The surname Bolívar derives from the Bolívar aristocrats who came from a small village in the Basque Country, Spain, called La Puebla de Bolívar. His father came from the male line of the de Ardanza family. His maternal grandmother, however, was descended from some families from the Canary Islands that settled in the country.