Victor Hugo Ayala

Víctor Hugo Ayala died on the night of Monday 5 October 2026, at the age of 92. His daughter, Luisa Ayala, confirmed his death to the radio station La FM of RCN Radio on 6 October, and told Caracol Radio's 6AM W programme that he had found rest the night before. No cause of death was made public, and his family did not release further details.

The news was widely reported in Colombian media, including Caracol Radio, Noticias RCN, El Tiempo, El País and Infobae, and prompted messages of condolence from listeners who remembered his boleros and his voice on the national anthem.

Víctor Hugo Ayala Caro was born in Bogotá on 13 June 1934. His mother was Leonor Caro.

He completed his secondary education at the Liceo Camilo Torres in Bogotá and then worked as a draughtsman in the technical section of the Colombian Navy. He also studied architecture for five semesters at a state university, but music, which he had begun to pursue on Bogotá radio, eventually became his career.

Ayala began singing in amateur contests on Bogotá radio stations and won first prize in a competition on Radio Santa Fe. From the early 1950s he sang regularly on Radio Santa Fe and on the stations La Voz de Colombia, where he first stood in for a friend, and Nueva Granada, where he was accompanied by the organist Jaime Llano González.

The producer Hernán Restrepo Duque invited him to record for the Sonolux label. His first record was the bolero "Camino verde" and his second was "La quiero porque la quiero", and both remained among the songs most associated with him. His rise came at a time when imports of foreign long playing records were tightly controlled in Colombia, and he was one of a group of local singers, with Alberto Granados and Alberto Osorio, whose records of boleros and other international styles sold strongly as a result.

He went on to record more than 20 LPs, with labels including Sonolux, RCA Victor, Philips and Discos Orbe, and sang in six languages. He was particularly identified with "Si te vuelvo a besar", a song by Jaime Llano González, and also recorded "Qué fácil fue olvidarte", "Un compromiso", "Fuego en el alma", "Ayer me echaron del pueblo" and "Por si no te vuelvo".

Ayala became one of the best known performers of the Colombian national anthem. For many years his recording was broadcast every 31 December as part of the end of year programming on Colombian public television. He knew all eleven verses and was known for insisting that a singer of the anthem should never forget one. According to his daughter, he also worked to make sure that the hymns of the armed forces, including those of the army and the navy, were properly recorded.

Ayala had at least one daughter, Luisa Ayala, who spoke publicly about his life and legacy after his death. She said that being the official voice of the national anthem had filled his soul.

His health problems began in 2012, at the age of 77, when he suffered two heart attacks and had open heart surgery at the Clínica Shaio in Bogotá. He returned to performing afterwards, but in later years he stepped away from the media and social networks, and his daughter described his last years as peaceful, with health difficulties that were well managed thanks to the care he received.

Ayala was one of the last surviving singers of the generation that built Colombian popular music on radio in the 1950s. His recordings of "Camino verde", "La quiero porque la quiero" and "Si te vuelvo a besar" remained part of the country's romantic song repertoire for decades, and his version of "Negra consentida" was included in a 2024 history of Colombian music told through 150 records.

For many Colombians, however, he was above all the voice of the national anthem, heard at the end of every year on public television for a generation.