Romero, Peter Manjarrés, Silvestre Dangond, Los Gigantes Del Vallenato, Galy Galiano, and Lisandro Meza among others. The current ambassador of the genre is Carlos Vives, who has progressively helped vallenato gain popularity worldwide by combining traditional vallenato music with pop/rock music, subgenre that has come to be known as "vallenato-pop". Vallenato musical orchestras and groups The traditional vallenato developed into a more orchestra type of musical group. Throughout the years, some groups started adding instruments and a group chorus to support the main singer, popularly and sarcastically known as "ay omberos". With these changes. Some of the instruments added or used by some orchestras were: the bass guitar, the congas drums, a Timbal set, drum kit, shakers, guache, electric piano, Spanish guitars, tambourine, cowbell, electric guitar, Saxophone, piano accordion, violins, among others. These groups also started fusioning local genres to the vallenato, usually with cumbia, porro sabanero, gaitas (group of gaita flute interpreters), merecumbe and joropo. Some groups seeking a wider audience started mixing vallenato with other international genres, like salsa, merengue, rock, classical music, reggae, reggaeton, ranchera, techno and house music. Some of these mixes did not become very popular because of their experimental sounds. La Nueva Ola (The New Wave) La Nueva Ola refers to the new generation of vallenato groups and orchestras that have created a distinctive sound for themselves while keeping some of the essences of their predecessors. Kaleth Morales is considered the leading artist of this young wave of vallenato musical groups, even after his death following a car accident on August 24, 2005. The leader is now Silvestre Dangond, who won five awards in Premios Nuestra Tierra in 2009. Other relevant artists are Silvestre Dangond, Peter Manjarrés and Martín Elías. See also Music of Colombia Vallenato Legend Festival UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists Latin Grammy Award for Best Cumbia/Vallenato Album Carlos Vives Stelis vallenata a new species of bee from Colombia named after Vallenato References External links Vallenato Legend Festival website The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy has a definition for Vallenato Colombian styles of music Culture of Cesar Department Culture of Valledupar Tropical music Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding