Salsongoza

David Robertson runs Salsongoza's 5-piece live show and, on other days, his own dance floor. His profile on the band's site puts it plainly: he "arbeitet als Tanzlehrer im eigenen Salsastudio in Schaffhausen" (works as a dance teacher in his own Salsastudio in Schaffhausen). The booking page folds that studio straight into the band's own pitch, offering "Salsa-Tanzunterricht, Privat-/Gruppenstunden, Crashkurse, Animation und vieles mehr für Ihren Anlass" (salsa dance lessons, private and group sessions, crash courses, animation and more, for your event) right alongside the band itself. It shows up on stage too: the band's own copy says its shows come with "Animation" built in, then adds, half warning and half promise, that "Mittanzen ist da schon beinahe Pflicht" (joining the dance is almost obligatory).

Robertson founded the group and fronts it on vocals, dance, maracas and composition, after, per his own bio, having "Arbeitete schon in Kuba als Sänger in mehreren Bands" (already worked in Cuba as a singer in several bands) before settling in Switzerland. The homepage calls the current lineup a "fünfköpfige Live-Band" (5-piece live band) and names 4 home countries for the group collectively: "Kuba, Spanien, Panama und der Schweiz." The other 4 members' own bios back 2 of those 4 directly. Nadia Ferran is described as a musician "mit kubanischen Wurzeln" (with Cuban roots), working as a singer and music educator. Laia Pascual, with "spanischen Wurzeln" (Spanish roots), has sung with the band since 2016, according to her own page. Jorge Enrique Rodríguez Pérez and Raylor Oliva are both named as musicians "aus Kuba" (from Cuba), Oliva specifically as drummer, pianist, composer and arranger. Between the five individual bios, Cuba and Spain are each backed by a named person; Panama and Switzerland appear only in the homepage's collective tagline, not attached to anyone by name on the band page itself.

The band's 5-piece line-up runs on its own backing tracks rather than a larger one on stage, which the band's site credits with making the group sound "voll und energiegeladen wie ein ganzes Latin Orchester" (full and energetic like a whole Latin Orchestra) despite the smaller headcount actually performing.

The homepage lists the band's genres as "Salsa, Timba, Bachata, Merengue, Reggaeton und Cumbia," and says the mix is built to "garantiert jeden Anlass zum Kochen" (guaranteed to bring any event to a boil). The dedicated music page fills that list in with specifics: the core repertoire draws on "der traditionellen kubanischen Musik, dem Son," and names 5 standards the band plays: "Chan Chan," "El Cuarto de Tula," "El Carretero," "Idilio" and "La Negra Tomasa," alongside material pulled from Venezuelan, Colombian, Puerto Rican and Dominican traditions, plus merengue, bachata and reggaeton-salsa fusion pieces. What the site says actually separates Salsongoza from the rest of the circuit isn't the covers, though. It's Robertson's own writing: "Was Salsongoza aber endgültig von den gängigen Salsa-Cover-Bands abhebt, sind die vielfältigen Eigenkompositionen des Bandleaders" (what finally sets Salsongoza apart from typical salsa cover bands are the bandleader's varied original compositions). Those originals mix Cuban music with Puerto Rican rhythm, reggaeton folded into salsa, and touches of African kizomba, built on named Afro-Cuban rhythmic forms: guaguancó, pilón, changüí and timba.

The site keeps its occasion language broad throughout, on every page read for this listing: "Anlässe aller Art" (events of all kinds), split into "private Kleinanlässe" (small private events) on one side and "grössere Events und Festivals" (larger events and festivals) on the other, the same 2 categories on the homepage, the booking page and the gallery captions alike.

A hometown residency at the Munot, then two nights opening for Orishas

The clearest picture of where Salsongoza actually plays comes from its own photo gallery: 25 dated, captioned bookings running from 04.04.2015 to 23.08.2024, plus five more recent dates listed separately on the homepage's own "Vergangene Konzerte" running through 18.04.2026. Together that is 30 dated, named appearances. What they show: a party the band runs itself at Schaffhausen's Munot fortress, "Munot Salsa Party," recurring as its own named booking in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022; repeat nights at Gatsby Bar inside Casino Schaffhausen; two dated appearances opening for the group Orishas, captioned "Teloneros de los Orishas en Pratteln" (14.10.17) and "Support ORISHAS" (06.07.2019); club and restaurant dates at Güterhof Schaffhausen across several different years; an open-air festival slot in Langnau, canton Bern; a trade fair, "WIGA-Messe," in Buchs (06.09.2025); and a private concert in Schaffhausen, dated but otherwise undescribed. The homepage's own past-concerts list adds four more towns to that footprint beyond Schaffhausen: Amriswil, St. Gallen, Buchs again and Opfikon, and its own prose claims a wider one still, "auch schon in Basel, Bern, Chur, Konstanz, Aarau und Winterthur aufgetreten" (has also already performed in Basel, Bern, Chur, Konstanz, Aarau and Winterthur), Konstanz being the one stop on that list across the German border.

No price list, no gear spec, one phone number to call

Past that, the site goes quiet. The music page describes the sound in real detail but never lists formations, so there is no duo/trio/full-band menu of the kind some acts in this category publish. The band page carries no founding date for the group. The booking page publishes no price, no package and no equipment or PA specification of any kind, not even a baseline for what the band supplies itself versus what a venue needs to provide. What it has instead is one contact: the booking page names David Robertson directly, with one phone number, 078 922 20 67, under an invitation to send "eine Nachricht" (a message) through its contact form, promising "wir werden uns sobald wie möglich bei Ihnen melden" (we'll get back to you as soon as possible). There's no booking agency layer, no events team, no second name to call if Robertson is unavailable. Every page read for this listing, home, band, music, booking and gallery, runs in German only; nothing in the navigation, Home, Band, Musik, Galerie, Booking, points to an English version, so a first enquiry would be starting in the same language the site itself is written in.

What that leaves is a band that can actually be checked, even in the places its own site won't do the checking for you. Five musicians are named, not just counted. The founder has a documented performing history in Cuba before he formed the group, and a second, separate business (a dance studio) that puts him in front of a dance floor for a living, not just on stage. The band has run its own recurring party at a genuine local landmark for years and has twice opened for a considerably bigger act. None of that is packaged for any one kind of event: no tiered pricing, no formation chart, no travel-radius promise, no occasion the act is sold as suiting more than any other. Anyone interested in that sound has exactly one phone number to start the conversation, and the site gives them almost nothing else to go on before they make the call.