He came to the U.S. to rock. Now, in Charlotte’s Latin music scene, he’s on a roll.

Two years ago, COVID stopped the entertainment industry in its tracks. But pressing pause on live music gave many local artists time to create.

One of those is UltimaNota, and on Saturday at Midwood International Center, the Charlotte-based Latin music group celebrates the release of its collaborative album, “Soñando,” which guitarist Tony Arreaza spearheaded to showcase the city’s diverse and vibrant Latin music community.

It’s been five years since Arreaza left his day job at the Latin American Coalition to produce events and manage Latin-American artists full-time through Carlotan Talents, which he’d founded in 2007.

“For years, other musicians told me I should learn to record in the studio, but I never had the time,” he says, while seated in the home studio/office that is tucked behind the North Davidson Street home he shares with wife Ailen and their two sons.

“When COVID hit, I thought it would last for a couple of weeks,” says Arreaza, who quickly ran through home repairs, painting the house and cleaning out closets. As the weeks became months, he spent 8 to 10 hours a day in the garage learning to use recording software and sending tracks to his bandmates. A friend mastered the first track for “Soñando,” and he released it online.

“I was just in love,” Arreaza says. “It was wonderful to be able to have it on Apple Music and all the platforms. I kept composing, composing, composing. Then George Floyd happened.”

Devastated by what unfolded on television, he and his wife struggled to explain the 46-year-old Black man’s murder to their kids.

“I felt like instead of watching a new series, we were watching news,” says Arreaza, who recalls reaching for his guitar and turning to his wife. “I said, ‘Let’s work on a song together?’ In 10 minutes, she’d written this poem. I read it and said, ‘This is the song!’”

While Ailen was reluctant to call her poem a song, Arreaza was already recruiting Helder Serralde (director of Orquesta Mayor, another Latin group from Charlotte) for a horn section and tropical ska/reggae group Bakalao Stars’ Christian Anzola to add a rap to the bridge.

The video for “Esperanza” — with its message of hope amid widespread tragedy — was released shortly before the 2020 presidential election and helped cement the Arts & Science Council grant to fund the completion of “Soñando” and a music video for “Mi Sueño,” which follows the lives of three local immigrants.

A dream to play rock ‘n’ roll in the U.S.

The heart of the Charlotte Latin music scene can easily be traced back to that immigrant experience and the conflict of assimilation while clinging to and celebrating history and culture.

In 1980, Arreaza’s older brother and sister received scholarships to attend Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte. Arreaza, who was 7 and living with their family back in their native Venezuela, began visiting Charlotte on holidays. He considered the United States the land of Disney World and 24-hour-a-day MTV.

When Arreaza finally came to the U.S. himself in 1993, his dream was to play rock ‘n’ roll, a genre he had discovered through his brother’s record collection.

“At 19, I sold everything I had. I brought a bag of clothes and a guitar,” says Arreaza, who moved in with his sister. The Spanish-speaking population was still small then, and he took both morning and evening English-language classes at CPCC.

He answered want-ads for rock guitarists, but was often met with rejection. Eventually, he hooked up with an alternative-rock band while working as a bartender, and spent two years gigging at Rocky’s and Tabloids Live.

It was at one of those gigs that the small Venezuelan flag Arreaza stuck on his amplifier caught the eye of vocalist Fred Figueroa, who also was from Venezuela. The two exchanged numbers and began playing music that drew on their Latin American roots.

“It was more natural,” Arreaza says. “Little by little, I was doing less alt-rock and more with Fred.”

‘Here to make the country a better place’

The duo called themselves Los DePaulo and played festivals, restaurants and private events. It wasn’t until he joined Latin rock group La Rua in the early 2000s that Arreaza began focusing on Spanish-language originals. Along with Bakalao Stars, La Rua founded Charlotte’s local Latin rock scene, recorded multiple albums, and toured with international artists like Los Amigos Invisibles.

“I couldn’t find anyone to book us, though,” he says. “We were told we were not ‘rock’ enough, or not ‘Hispanic’ enough.”

In response, La Rua founded the Carlotan Rock Festival, which showcased local and international acts and gave Arreaza a crash course in event organizing.

His focus changed 12 years ago, when his wife was pregnant with their son.

“I freaked out that we weren’t going to make enough money,” he says. “I wanted to create a band that could make money.”

While UltimaNota began as a way to make extra money by playing Latin-tinged covers at corporate events, weddings, and festivals, the pandemic pushed the group — which includes musicians from El Salvador, Mexico, Venezuela, and the Domenican Republic — to write its own material.

“Before the pandemic, I grabbed my guitar in a different way,” he says.

The release of “Soñando” marks both an end and a new beginning for the Latin scene, says Arreaza, who is now busy booking summer festivals.

“I feel like before we were a cheesy cover band,” he says. “Now we’re trying to get our own gigs instead of playing for dancing or being background music.”

He’s seen the immigrant population boom and diversify since he arrived, but says there’s still work to do. The video for “Mi Sueno” concludes with a salsa party at which immigrants mingle and dance with non-Latinos who are learning to salsa.

“That’s an integration. As an event organizer and a musician, I gather people to celebrate our culture,” he says of the diverse closing scene. “The chorus says, ‘We’re here to make the country a better place.’ That’s why we’re here.

“Come along. Get to know our authentic food, music, sense of humor.”

UltimaNota’s album release party

All of the artists featured on the album — including Brazilian guitarist Reinaldo Brahn, Bakalao Stars, acoustic duo Café Amaretto, and Helder Serralde — will join UltimaNota on stage. The concert follows a screening of the band’s video for the new single, “Mi Sueño,” and a making-of documentary.

When: 7 p.m. Saturday.

Where: Midwood International Center, 1817 Central Ave.

Tickets: $15.

Details: www.ultimanotamusic.com.