Zacarías Ferreira — Zacarías Ferreira de la Cruz, born in Canca Arriba, a paraje of Tamboril, on 10 October 1968 — is a Dominican singer and guitarist. He is called La Voz de la Ternura for the softness of his voice, and he is one of the handful of singers who define what bachata sounds like outside the country.

The conservatory and the rum orchestra

He was born into a family of musicians and singers, and the house was full of music before he could decide anything about it. As a young man he left for Santo Domingo and enrolled at the Conservatorio Nacional — while singing in a local bachata group, in his own words, because he had to earn a living.

That combination is the whole point of him. Bachata was dismissed for decades as music made by people with no training; here is a bachatero who went to the conservatory and sang in cantinas at the same time to pay for it.

He then spent five years in the orchestra of the Brugal rum company, which in the Dominican Republic is a working musician’s apprenticeship as much as a job.

Two Casandras

Me Liberé arrived in 1997 and took the Premio Casandra. El Triste followed in 2000 and took it again — twice in four years, for a bachatero, at a moment when the award establishment was still deciding whether the genre counted.

He became the first bachatero to play the Festival Presidente, and in 2002 the first to play S.O.B.’s in Manhattan. In the winter of 2001 he went to the United States for the first time and played seventy-seven dates in six and a half weeks in New York.

Amiga Veneno

With José Manuel El Sultán and Lenny Santos of Aventura, he is among the first bachateros to pull blues and rock into the genre. Amiga Veneno, recorded in 2002, carries a wah pedal and an electric guitar solo, and it is the record that took him into the Latin mainstream.

Es Tan Difícil, Asesina, La Mejor de Todas, Mañana en tu Olvido, La Avispa, Dime Qué Faltó, Quédate Conmigo and Te Lo Pido a Gritos are the rest of what a Dominican audience can sing from memory. In 2019 Romeo Santos brought him onto Me Quedo, on the album Utopía.

Sixteen albums

The records run from Me Liberé through El Triste, Adiós, Novia Mía, El Amor Vencerá, Quiéreme, Dime Qué Faltó, Te Dejo Libre, Quédate Conmigo, Mi Dulzura, Me Gusta Todo de Ti, El Amor, Que Yo Soy Así, Nunca and Contigo in 2021, across Discomania, J&N Records and Mayimba.

In August 2010 he reopened the primary school at Amaceyes Arriba, near where he was born, having rebuilt it with a friend.