Cuban Colada

U.S. musicians receive award from official who decried noxious effect of U.S. music

Minister of Culture Abel Prieto on Tuesday presented the band Kool and the Gang with the Cubadisco-2009 Grand Prize created for artists who contribute "to the betterment of mankind."
The American musicians performed a free, open-air concert in Havana on Sunday.
Oddly enough, one day earlier, Prieto had stood before the National Assembly to decry "the hegemonic penetration and contaminating industry of consumerism" and to promote Cuban music "to confront the enemy, particularly on the field of ideas."
In Cuba today, "there is an evident influence of [...] commercial music from hegemonic circuits," he said.
Presumably, "the enemy" is the United States and its "hegemonic penetration" includes popular music. "Consumerism" usually is a synonym for "capitalism."
The promotion of native Cuban music "will be the best antidote for consumerism and will foster cultural emancipation," Prieto told the Assembly.
So why did Prieto agree to honor a U.S. musical group that represents consumerism and hegemonic penetration? I don't know, but I'm glad he did. Music is a powerful means of communication between cultures.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

La Charanga to spend Christmas in Miami

The popular timba band La Charanga Habanera, led by David Calzado, will end the year with a visit to South Florida, the Cubadebate website announced this week. At least two concerts have been scheduled here as a teaser for a 45-day tour of the U.S. beginning in May of next year, according to Cubadebate.
For the benefit of those who are not familiar with the group (and I count myself among them), I asked a music expert at The Herald to give me a capsule description.
"They're a hardcore timba band, kind of the apotheosis of the style," she told me. "Very urban, very Havana, very slangy and street, with really fast, dense, complex music and rhythms – fabulous for some, too loud-fast-noisy for others."
One of the band's more popular songs is "Gozando en La Habana" ("Having fun in Havana"), which tells the story of a young Cuban woman who moves to Miami but finds that she misses her homeland. Her boyfriend back in Cuba chides her with the refrain "You weep in Miami, I wail in Havana."
Unfortunately, Cubadebate does not provide the band's schedule in the U.S., but a quick look at the Internet reveals that it is booked at the Cafe Cocomo in San Francisco (Dec. 22-23), Dolce Miami in Miami Beach (Dec. 26 at 10 p.m.), and Rancho Gaspar in Hialeah (Dec. 27 at 3 p.m.)
For confirmation of the dates and additional info, click here.
To read more about the band, access its website here. [A Reuters feature story can be accessed here.]
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Cuban singer gets visa, performs in DC

Singer-songwriter Carlos Varela, who was barred from the U.S. by the Bush administration, performed at a church in Washington on Thursday, taking advantage of a three-week visa granted him by the Obama administration, Reuters reported.
Varela met with an unidentified White House official, according to the organizers of his trip, the Center for Democracy in the Americas. He also spoke with representatives Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and John Tierney (D-Mass.)
Thursday evening, Varela was scheduled to take part in a symposium on Cuba at American University in Washington. The university helped the CDA secure the singer's visa.
Varela, who last visited the U.S. in 1998, hopes to bring his band on a tour next year, Reuters said.
In 2004, the Bush administration denied Varela a visa to perform in Miami, even though 1,700 tickets had been sold. To read the Reuters report, click here. (PHOTO of Varela speaking at American University was provided by the CDA.)

Los Van Van plan 70 concerts in the U.S. next year, but only 'one or two' in Miami

Los Van Van, Cuba's top-ranking timba band, plans to give 70 concerts in the United States in a three-stage series in 2010 that might extend until 2011, the band's founder and musical director, Juan Formell, said Friday in Havana.
He gave no specifics, other than "one or two" of the performances might take place in Miami, where the group had a stormy reception in 1999.
"Miami has changed a lot in the past 10 years," said Formell, adding that the situation is more "favorable" to the Cubans' presence, without "so much aggressiveness." There are "many young people from Cuban families who are in favor" of a visit by Los Van Van, he said.
Formell and his son Samuel – his successor as the orchestra's leader – were attending the premiere of a documentary about the 40th anniversary of the band's creation.
The orchestra will give an anniversary concert Dec. 9 at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, featuring musicians such as singers Omara Portuondo and Pedro Calvo and pianist César "Pupy" Pedroso. Later in December, it will embark on a tour that will take it to Colombia and Panama.

–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Cuban conductor leads Fargo orchestra

Zenaida Romeu, conductor of the all-female Cuban string orchestra Camerata Romeu, led the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra in a concert Saturday at North Dakota State University's Festival Concert Hall, the website InForum reported Sunday.
According to reviewer J. Shane Mercer, "Romeu’s conducting style was something of a performance. [...] There is little to nothing shy or retiring in her presence on stage. She directed those under her command like a benevolent general, her closely cropped hair adding to that air."
The concert opened with pieces by three Cuban composers, "the most striking of which was Roberto Valera’s gorgeous 'La Lenta Noche en tus Ojos,'” Mercer wrote.
The other compositions were “Tres Danzas Cubanas” by Alejandro García Caturla, and “Tres Pequeños Poemas,” by Amadeo Roldán. "Though these pieces are of Cuban origin, they do not sound like the vernacular Cuban or Latin music," the reviewer wrote. "These are symphonic, orchestral pieces at heart."
The concert closed with Beethoven's Symphony No. 3. The program was repeated Sunday afternoon.

Famed septet gets visa for Bronx concert

Cuba's legendary Septeto Nacional was granted a visa by the State Department to perform next month in the Bronx, N.Y., The Associated Press reported Thursday.
The group will play Nov. 7 in the 900-seat auditorium of the Hostos Community College's Center for the Arts and Culture. The concert is called "¡Échale salsita!", the title of one of the group's biggest hits.
The ensemble – which consists of two guitars, bass, two percussionists, trumpet and singer – plays traditional Cuban music. Created in 1927 by singer-composer Ignacio Piñeiro, it was an instant hit throughout the island. It is now in its third generation.
For information from Hostos about the concert, click here.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Some details emerge of 2 foiled concerts

If the New York Philharmonic had gone to Havana this month, this is what it would have played:
• On Oct. 31, Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, played by Emanuel Ax.
• On Nov. 1, Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony, and an unnamed symphonic version of traditional American tunes.
The disclosure was made by Roberto Chorens Dotres, director of Cuba's National Symphony Orchestra, to the Cubadebate.com website.
The Cuban orchestra was preparing a special concert for its visitors during their first night in Havana, Chorens said. It was to be played on Cathedral Square. He did not reveal what compositions were to be performed.
Chorens also said that the Cuban orchestra had provided the Philharmonic with the score and parts for a symphonic arrangement of the danzón "Three beautiful Cubans," featuring Chucho Valdés at the piano.
At the Philharmonic's request, the stage at the Amadeo Roldán Theater was extended one meter to the front and the stage platforms were rearranged. Tents were to be installed next to the theater, to serve as dressing rooms for the visiting musicians.
Commenting on the visa impasse (see previous Cuban Colada items), Chorens said: "We're betting on a thaw [...] Philharmonic officials tell us they won't abandon the project [...] and we support them. As soon as the absurd policy that caused the suspension of this trip is waived, we shall welcome them with affection and solidarity."

[UPDATE: Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said Monday that he has written to the Treasury Department office that issues travel licenses to "see if we couldn't get them to think straight just a bit." For an Associated Press account, click here.]

[UPDATE: Alec Baldwin believes that the travel restrictions "should be lifted, at the very least, for cultural projects like the one by the Philharmonic." In an article in the website The Huffington Post, the actor writes that "if a hundred or so patrons accompany [the musicians] as a means of facilitating the trip, they should be allowed to go, too."]
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Philharmonic seeks to solve visa impasse barring donors and make Cuba trip soonest

Preparing to leave New York City for Tokyo at the start of the New York Philharmonic's month-long Asian Horizons tour, orchestra spokesman Eric Latzky took time to send The Miami Herald this message:
"The New York Philharmonic is disappointed to have to postpone its planned visit to Havana, previously scheduled for Oct. 30 - Nov. 2.
"Because cultural projects in the U.S., such as the Philharmonic's concerts in Cuba, rely on private support, the planned financing by supporters and patrons is vital to the project – without this group the trip is not financially possible.
"The U.S. Departments of State, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, have been very helpful in the planning of this project to date, and we greatly appreciate their support. We will continue to seek a mutually acceptable solution, and hope to be able to reschedule the New York Philharmonic's visit to Havana as soon as possible."
For background, read our Oct. 2 blog entry "Cuba laments the Philharmonic's decision..."
The Asian Horizons tour will take the orchestra to Tokyo (Oct. 8-10), Seoul (Oct. 12-13), Hanoi (Oct. 16-17), Singapore (Oct. 19-20) and the United Arab Emirates (Oct. 23-24).
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Young Cuban pianist prepares debut disc

Alfredo Rodríguez is playing a concert today (Oct. 3) at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. A profile of the 24-year-old Cuban pianist in the Los Angeles Times describes him as a "classically trained [musician who] can ad-lib his way from traditional Cuban son and modern jazz to Bartok and Iranian popular tunes, in a manner that suggests Art Tatum by way of Ernesto Lecuona."
Nicely phrased.
Rodríguez defected to the United States in January of this year, while accompanying his father on a tour to Mérida, Mexico. He is recording a debut album with composer-producer Quincy Jones, who has become his mentor and teacher.
Rodríguez is "an absolute monster," Jones told The Times. "He composes and writes all day long. He played so hard on that piano [one] day, he broke the C string." The first time Jones heard Rodríguez play, "it knocked me on my booty, man."
To read more of what Rodríguez is all about, click here.
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Cuba laments the Philharmonic's decision; hopes Washington will reverse its visa ban

The news that the New York Philharmonic has temporarily cancelled its trip to Cuba "is evidence that the government of the United States is the only responsible party for the failure of this eminently cultural project," the Cuban Institute of Music's spokesman, Alejandro Gumá, told the Cubadebate website on Friday. (See our Oct. 1 blog item "NYPhilharmonic postpones Cuba concerts, citing travel restrictions...")
The U.S. Treasury Department refused to grant visas to about 150 members of the Philharmonic's board of directors and major donors who had hoped to accompany the orchestra to Havana Oct. 30-Nov. 2. Alan Gilbert was to conduct two concerts in the Cuban capital.
Each donor would have given $10,000 to the orchestra; part of that amount was to cover his or her expenses while on the island.
"This was a project that was conceived not by Cuba but by [the Philharmonic] and we can imagine how frustrated the organizers must be, because to them the concert was a done deal," Gumá said.
"The Music Institute had everything ready to welcome the orchestra, having complied with the technical and logistic requirements – some of which were very complex – that the Philharmonic had requested," the spokesman said.
"All the conditions they requested to make the concerts proceed with the maximum quality were accepted by Cuba"
In the event Washington reconsiders its ban on the benefactors and directors, "Cuba is keeping its doors open to the orchestra and to its promoters and organizers, who so respectfully came to us and expressed their admiration for our music," Gumá said. "We're not going to dismantle anything that we have done."
The concert was to include Cuban music, "whose scores are already in the hands of the American musicians," Gumá added. He did not reveal what compositions had been selected but said that the musicians chosen to represent Cuba in the concerts included pianist Chucho Valdés, percussionist José Luis ("Changuito") Quintana, and soprano Bárbara Llanes.
For coverage by The New York Times, click here. [UPDATE: The orchestra is leaving Sunday on an Asian tour that will include Vietnam.]
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.