Montana~Havana Bridge Project’s CUBUSA Music, is a growing intercultural writing and recording project between musicians living in Cuba and the USA. Our CUBUSA (Koo-Boo-Sa) musicians are dedicated to strengthening the bond and trust between the citizens of both nations through collaboration and co-creation of a new fusion of Cuban and American compositions, drawing from our respective musical influences. Our grassroots project has grown to over 50 musicians representing both nations, and hopes to double in size by the end of this decade. Though we already have many recognized and talented professional musicians supporting this effort, our goal is to build a wider audience, spanning a full range of genres and popular music through an international collaboration of artistry at the highest levels.

Doug Wales- Project Director/Musician

Since his first trip in 2011, Doug has networked throughout Cuba with some of their finest musicians and artists. With the very fortunate relationships he has made within Cuba’s music and art community, Doug has been compelled to share the richness of this experience by leading the creation of an intercultural music collaboration called, CUBUSA Music, to share with his community in Montana and throughout the USA and Cuba. Doug has been involved in all aspects of this project including percussion, song writer and video editor in addition to project production.

Jake Fleming - Music Director/Musician

As a voting member of the Recording Academy, Jake is an accomplished 30-year career musician, performer, teacher, published artist and recording engineer soon to complete his masters degree in Music Production from Berklee School of Music. Jake served as the primary producer of CUBUSA’s first 13 song CD, Swapping Tracks. He is a talented multi-instrumentalist who specializes in jazz saxophone while also performing in many groups across a full spectrum of music. His wide-ranging talents on both sides of the recording console, supported by his passionate and compassionate approach towards musical artistry, has made this cross-cultural music collaboration an inspiring experience for musicians and listeners, alike.

John Roberts - Musician/Professor

John is a Professor of Music at MSU Billings, teaching Music Theory, Aural Perception, Jazz Ensemble, Afro-Latin Ensemble, World Music courses and more.   He is active in the Montana and Los Angeles performing and studio scenes as a bandleader, studio musician and composer/arranger.  John is currently producing his next album, recorded in Santiago de Cuba, Montana and Los Angeles.  This record will be a collaboration between Cuban, Congolese, Los Angeles and Montana musicians.

John has performed in all 50 of the United States and around the world, including;  Mexico, South America, Israel, Cuba, India, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, Australia and Africa.  Notable venues include the Lincoln Center in New York, Pantages Theatre, Kodak Theatre, Roskilde, House of Blues, Blue Note, Apollo and Apollo London.  

Performances and recordings include multiple Grammy and Emmy Award Shows, Chris Botti, Celia Cruz, LA Philharmonic, Feist, Sting, Dr. Dre, Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, Fallout Boy, Burt Bacharach, Bill Holman, The Ojays, Jill Scott, Christina Aguilera, The Today Show, NPR, PBS, Disney, and more.

Aquiles Jorge - Cuban musician liaison/musician

As a classical guitarist, Aquiles has performed concerts in all the major music halls of Cuba. He has regularly been selected as the guest artist at major national events receiving, dignitaries, olympic athletes, baseball teams, scientists, international guests and more. Long having served as one of Cuba’s official judges of professional musicians, Aquiles access to Cuba’s music talent is deep and vast across all genres. 

Ruben Lester - Musician/Recording Engineer

This native of Santiago de Cuba has been recognized as one of their most talented singer-song writers. You can see his picture along side of Cuba’s greatest musicians on the walls of the Casa de Trova in Santiago -one of the most prestigious (albeit smallest) music venues in the world. Ruben has five published records, mostly with EGREM, the national record label for Cuba. He has been nominated for multiple Cubadisco awards (Cuba’s most prestigious music awards) in the Trova-Fusion category, and has performed on stage with many well-known artists such as: Ben Harper, Yusa, Portishead, José Aquiles, Holly Holden, Saxophone Quartet, Roberto Carcases, Harold López Nusa, Raúl Torres, Bernabéu, David Blanco, and many more.

Kali Armstrong - Musician

Kali is a talented vocalist who resides with her husband in Helena, Montana. In addition to her time performing as a singer/songwriter, she has performed with the Brazilian Jazz-pop group Supernova, and tribute band, Pinky and the Floyd. Kali has dedicated much of her music and voice to the natural world, celebrating environmental conservation through song and helping to inspire stewardship of our planet’s precious wild lands. As the grand daughter of America’s most famous astronaut, Neil Armstrong, Kali participated as a vocalist for NASA’s 50th Anniversary celebration of the Apollo 11 Moon landing with performances at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Lincoln Center in Washington, D.C. Kali is currently involved in producing and performing in a multi-media concert production with a German orchestra featuring NASA’s space program while introspectively focusing more on our home planet, Earth. Kali is the lead vocalist on CUBUSA’s, Sensual Blue Delight, a song inspired by quotes from her grandfather and other astronauts observations while viewing our beautiful, yet fragile, planet from the darkness of space.

El Medico - Musician

Raynier Casamayor “El Medico” has been one of this decade’s favorite reggaeton entertainers in Cuba and throughout other Latin and European Countries. He has drawn on his roots combining Afro-Cuban rhythms with Jamaican reggae to create his distinct style and reggaeton sound. Raynier was given the name, “El Medico”, from his fans … because his day job was being a medical doctor in Cuba. His life story was made into the award winning documentary, El Medico- The Cuban Story (2011). Raynier is a multi-talented singer, song writer and dancer as well as video editor and producer of his own music videos. Though Raynier performed to sold-out audiences throughout Europe for a 10-month time period while based in Sweden, his heart and soul is Santiago de Cuba, where he grew up and prefers to call home.

Paige Rasmussen - Musician

Paige is a multi-award winning Musician, Songwriter, Producer and Filmmaker from Bozeman Montana. Her artistic pursuits have taken her across the US, performing in such musical hubs as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Nashville, Austin and many more. She has performed at famed venues and music festivals including the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City as well as on the Las Vegas Strip where she sang, acted and danced before large audiences in the show, Raw Talent Live that premiered at the Sahara Hotel and Casino.  With a Vegas cast comprised mostly of Cuban artist haling from Havana, she expanded her professional repertoire to include performance of Latin music and rhythms.

Shane Doyle: Indigenous Scholar/Plains Indian Singer

Dr. Shane Doyle (Apsáalooke), is a Montana-based scholar, writer, performing artist, and community advocate whose work focuses on the deep history and cultural heritage of the Indigenous people of the Northern Great Plains. Doyle holds a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from Montana State University and completed a post-doctoral research appointment with the Centre for Geogenetics at the University of Copenhagen in 2016.  Dr. Doyle co-lead the Yellowstone Revealed All-Nations Teepee Village in the summer of 2022 and is currently a full-time cultural consultant who lives in Bozeman.  He has 35 years of experience singing Plains Indian style music throughout Montana and around the nation.

Juan Tejera - Cultural Advisor/Historian

As one of Santiago de Cuba’s most recognized cultural leaders, Juan has played a major role in the city’s music and art scene. He served in all major capacities for the National Union of Writer and Artists (UNEAC) of Santiago. He was one of the primary organizers of Santiago’s annual Caribbean Festival, managed a Cuban salsa band in Europe and had a radio show with over 96% of Santiago’s listening audience. Known throughout the city as “the professor”, Juan brought a great depth of understanding and historical perspective of Cuban music to our project. Sadly, Juan passed away in 2021, but his memory and spirit lives on through our project that he helped make possible.

David Charles -Adjunct Professor/Musician

David teaches in the School of Music, the College of Letters and Science, the American Studies Program, and the Liberal Studies Program at Montana State University. He had his first professional experience as an organist, choir director, and freelance pianist in South Carolina. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in composition and theory from the University of South Carolina, where he studied jazz piano and composition with Bert Ligon, composition with Dick Goodwin, and piano with John Williams. He earned a Master of Music degree in ethnomusicology from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied under Stephen Slawek (who is an acknowledged disciple of Ravi Shankar) and Gerard Béhague. While at UT, he also studied composition with Donald Grantham and was the keyboardist for the Afropop band Easy Motion Tourist. His primary interests are African-American music and culture as well as the music and culture of North India.

Barrett Golding - Audio Producer/Journalist

Barrett was Executive Producer of the Peabody Award-winning public-radio series Hearing Voices from NPR. He produced podcasts for Human Rights Watch, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Audible, CBS Radio, and MIT’s TILClimate. He was a Reynolds Journalism Institute Residential Fellow and United States Artists Rasmuson Fellow in Media. He worked as General Manager of KGLT-Bozeman and an NPR Audio Engineer in DC. Awards include: the National Federation of Community Broadcasters Silver Reel, the Scripps Howard Award for Journalism Excellence, the American Bar Association Gavel Award, Harvestworks Artist-in-Residence, Montana Arts Council Fellowship, and grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Endowment for the Arts.

During the pandemic in 2021, we released our CUBUSA Swapping Tracks album, featuring 13 original compositions written and recorded over a 6 year period with multiple trips between recording studios located in Santiago de Cuba and Bozeman,  Montana. This past May, 2023, CUBUSA recorded 5 new songs, several with pop music appeal, and we now have our latest releases being played on 208 radio stations in Cuba. This past January, CUBUSA’s song, Sincopa, hit #5 nationally on Cuba radio!