Colombian pop star Juanes has recorded a new edition of MTV Unplugged, employing the services of Dominican singer-songwriter Juan Luis Guerra as musical director.

The Miami resident, who gave the performance at Miami Beach’s New World Center concert hall, acknowledged that he was not familiar with the venue four months ago and never imagined that “such a wonderful place” existed in South Florida.

Dressed in jeans and a black shirt, Juan Esteban Aristizabal Vasquez offered words of thanks to the audience, telling his fans he was happy to share with them “this dream (of recording an installment of the MTV Unplugged series) that’s now become a reality.”

Backed by several other musicians on acoustic guitar, bass, saxophone, piano, drums, violin and cello, Juanes on Wednesday night performed a selection of his best-known hits as well as some new tracks he wrote for the concert, which will be aired as a TV special and also be released as a CD and DVD.

The singer kicked off 2012 with a trip to the Dominican Republic, where Guerra gave shape to this new work while they were “drinking Dominican coffee and talking about life” and the two jointly composed some new songs.

“All the arrangements, everything you see is the work of the maestro Juan Luis Guerra,” said Juanes, who praised the Latin music icon for “getting things out of my music I hadn’t felt in a long time.”