When trumpet maestro Miguelito Valdés moved here from Cuba in 2006, B.C.’s Latin-American population was still relatively small and widely dispersed. Things have changed. Today Latinos and Latinas are increasingly connected across the province, and their community is particularly strong in East Van, where the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre opened its doors four years ago.

On that occasion the music was provided by Valdés and friends, under the banner of Club Habana. This Friday those same musicians, joined by the Cameron Wilson String Quartet, get together once again to present a special program celebrating both VLACC’s fifth anniversary and Canada 150+.

“Club Habana is a collaboration with Victor Martinez and [singer] Danay Sinclair, who are working with VLACC, and has been happening several years now,” says Valdés, reached at his home in Victoria. “We featured a lot of percussion and folkloric music with our percussionist Toto Berriel, and had a band also with Pablo Cardenas, our piano player, who, like me, is also from Cuba and living in Victoria. This year we’re going to do Latin versions of some well-known composers from Canada—with strings from Cam Wilson.”

It won’t be the first time Wilson and Valdés have teamed up. “I did gigs for Mariachi del Sol with Miguel,” recalls the violinist, who plays classical, swing jazz, and Celtic music with equal agility and ease. “For this show he asked me to put a string quartet together. Miguel selected the material, including one of my own pieces, ‘Tango in Blue Minor’, which was written in the late ’90s and has only been performed twice. All the string arrangements are Miguel’s.”

A leader on the B.C. music scene, Valdés plays an ever-expanding range of styles, writes and arranges tunes, and collaborates with a long list of artists and ensembles. “I play with the Hard Rubber Orchestra and its Latin offshoot, Orquesta Goma Dura; also with Tom Landa’s world-music group, Locarno, and with Tom’s other band, the Paperboys; as well as Rumba Calzada, Johnny Ferreira’s band, and with Kenny ‘Blues Boss’ Wayne. So many things.”

Valdés’s curiosity and creativity are matched by a respect for and deep understanding of Cuban roots music in all its diversity. For seven years he was the trumpet player in Buena Vista Social Club singer Omara Portuondo’s band, and he later toured with Juan de Marcos and his Afro-Cuban All Stars. Currently Valdés is working full-time with the Royal Canadian Navy’s Naden Band. “For Club Habana this time I’ll be doing ‘Miguelito’s Blues’, a piece I recorded with Naden on our jazz album, as well as ‘Danzón de Migue’, another composition of mine.”

The repertoire Valdés has chosen for Club Habana and the CWSQ includes several classics from the great Canadian song bag—Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, Oscar Peterson’s “Hymn to Freedom”, Gilles Vigneault’s “Mon Pays”, Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain”, and k.d. lang’s “Constant Craving”. “It was hard for me to choose the tunes that were the most Canadian. It’s not like Cuba, where you’d immediately say ‘Guantana­mera’ or anything from Buena Vista Social Club. It was hard for me, but we’re doing it in style. For ‘Hallelujah’, I will be singing—and we’re going to make it like a slow cha-cha-cha.”

Mr. Cohen’s hat would tip to that.

Club Habana and the Cameron Wilson String Quartet play the Vancouver Playhouse on Friday (November 17).