José Aguirre (Pereira, Colombia) is a musician, producer, composer, arranger and musical director.

Self-taught person by vocation. Since he was 10 years old, José Aguirre played the euphonium and additionally, he learned to play the piano, bass and guitar. Primarily, José Aguirre stands out as an excellent trumpeter.

The roots of José Aguirre are in Caldas, a department of Colombia. He moved to Cali at the age of 17. There, representative orchestras of the city summoned him. At the age of 20, he was invited by Maestro Jairo Varela to be part of Grupo Niche, where he worked as a trumpeter, arranger and producer. Soon, José Aguirre became the youngest director in the history of this emblematic salsa group from Cali, Colombia.

José Aguirre, an integral and multifaceted artist, has won several Grammy and Latin Grammy awards.

Within his career, José Aguirre has been highlighted as a writer and arranger of diverse genres like salsa, pacific folklore, classic and Latin music. He has been composer and arranger of established artists such as Cesária Évora, Thalia, Marc Anthony, Grupo Niche, Luis Enrique, Diego El Cigala, Andrés Cepeda, Javier Vásquez, Yuri Buenaventura and Mickey Taveras, among others.

Nowadays, José Aguirre is the musical director and producer of Grupo Niche and in addition leads its own projects: Cali Big Band, Calle Maestra, Aguirre Trumpet and Kema.

As part of its writing work, compositions for the Symphony National Orchestra stand-out, as well as the symphonic salsa project of Yuri Buenaventura (Manigua, 2018) and the Santiago de Cali Philharmonic Orchestra for the opening ceremony of the Feria de Cali.

Likewise, the composition of the suite for a symphony “Aguaje y Manigua” (2014) is also notable, containing four musical streams from the Colombian Pacific: Currulao, Chirimía, Levanta Polvo and Agua Bajo.