Glenda was born in Havana and grew up in a musical family, daughter of Cuban singer Mireya Escalante and percussionist Mayito del Monte. She became interested in music at the age of four or five, when her father took her to rehearsals of the Riverside Orchestra. In her beginnings, she was part of the Paquito González Cueto school band. She began her training as a pianist at the age of seven at the Paulita Concepción Music School, and later studied music at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory.
Although she received classical training, she had the opportunity to form a group with her mother called Mireya Escalante & Latin Street, in which she had her first approach to salsa and Latin jazz. Still linked to the conservatory, she received an invitation to participate in a New Talent and Model Search piano competition in Toronto, which allowed her to obtain a scholarship at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, the city where she settled with her parents.
According to her, the experience of moving to Canada when she was fifteen years old “nurtured her creative process and helped her open up to a new world of sounds.” There she had the opportunity to receive lessons from teachers like John Alonso and Marietta Orlov, as well as participate in various piano competitions and recitals. After graduating from the conservatory, she entered the University of Toronto, where she obtained a Bachelor of Piano Performance; she also pursued a master’s degree in Ethnomusicology and Piano Performance at York University.
Glenda del Monte Escalante, known professionally as Glenda del E, is a Cuban-Canadian pianist, singer, record producer, arranger and composer, nominated for a Latin Grammy Award in 2022 for her album Ella, in collaboration with Venezuelan violinist Daniela Padrón.
She received musical training on the island and later moved with her family to Canada to study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. After joining the canadian pop band The Parachute Club in the late 2000s, in the 2010s she formed the group Glenda del E & Q-ban Mixology, with which she recorded an album of the same name in 2010.
During this period, she collaborated with artists like Paquito D’Rivera, Fernando Osorio and Oriente López, and in 2015 she was invited by Alejandro Sanz to be part of his Sirope tour. Since then, she has accompanied the Spanish singer as a pianist in his live performances and in some studio recordings. In November 2020, she joined the band of Venezuelan singer José Luis Rodríguez during a streaming presentation.
After being nominated for the Latin Grammy Awards, in 2023 she released her first full-length album as a soloist, entitled Kaleidoscope. Parallel to her work as an artist, Glenda has worked as a music teacher at institutions like York University, the Yamaha Music School, the Miami Conservatory of Music, the New York Piano School, and Encore Music Academy of the Arts, among others.