The next edition 38 of the International Jazz Plaza Festival 2023, based in this capital and Santiago de Cuba, will be a success despite the difficulties that the country is going through, said its president Víctor Rodríguez today.
At a press conference, the director of the National Center for Popular Music highlighted the participation in the event from January 22 to 29 of important national and foreign musicians, who are making a great effort to travel to the Caribbean island.
According to the newspaper of the event, in addition to Cuban artists, Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Spain, France, Congo, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Peru, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, South Africa and the United States, with the greatest representativeness, are expected.
The Cuban Deputy Minister of Culture, Fernando Jacomino, highlighted the more than 100 concerts that will be held during those days and thanked the presence of international musicians and Cubans living in other countries, who will travel to the island despite the pressures against it.
In this regard, he stressed that this is the festival of Cuban jazz musicians wherever they live and highlighted the joint effort of the island’s institutions to make a party of music of the highest quality.
The president of the Cuban Institute of Music reported that more than 11 cultural spaces will be enabled for such purposes, both in Havana and Santiago de Cuba, which will be extended with functions in squares and parks of both cities.
The Santiago composer Rodolfo Vaillant, in charge of the activities of the Festival in that city of eastern Cuba, meant that in addition to the usual scenarios, the presentations will also invade the Plaza de Dolores and some of the main and most populous avenues of that city.
In this capital, the concerts will be held at the Nacional, Martí, América, Lázaro Peña, the National Museum of Fine Arts, the Bertolt Brecht Cultural Center, the Cuba Pavilion, the Casa de la Cultura de Plaza, the Cuban Art Factory and the Salón Rosado de la Tropical.
The National Music Prize (2012) Bobby Carcassés, founder of Jazz Plaza, warned that the next appointment will reach more locations than on other occasions and invited the Cuban public not to miss the presentations of renowned national and foreign instrumentalists.
In his speech, Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca, artistic director of the Festival, said that his dream is in the future to be able to take the jazz festival to other provinces of the Antillean nation where this musical genre has many followers.
The image of the event is the work Baseball Player, by the notable Cuban artist Arturo Montoto, who impregnated his creative stamp that advocates the conjunction of music and baseball, two of the symbols of national culture.
During the meeting there will be tributes to the rumbera group Los Muñequitos de Matanzas for its 70 years, the trumpeter Bobby Carcassés who reaches his 85 years, the composer Martha Valdés, the percussionist Chano Pozo and the pianist Hernán López Nusa.
The 18th International Colloquium Leonardo Acosta in Memorian, will remember his imprint on Cuban music on the 90th anniversary of his birth and will also offer an extensive academic program of conferences, master classes and panels at the Cuban Art Factory. (PL)
