YouTube: 'Leo Brouwer: Cuando tuve, yo te tuve - Entrevoces, Havana, Cuba' Chamber Choir Competition June 12, 2011

[Leo Brouwer; Entrevoces]

Entrevoces is a 20-voice choir from Havana, Cuba. This video is a live performance of Leo Brouwer's Cuando tuve, yo te tuve (2:58) in Germany on June 12, 2011:

YouTube.com

“12th International Chamber Choir Competition Marktoberdorf, Germany, http://www.modfestivals.org; June 10-15, 2011; Live recording; This is a service of Choral Festival Network http://www.choralfestivalnetwork.org; Competition Round 2, June 12"

ModFestivals.org

“Ever since 1989, connoisseurs of the international choral scene have met every two years in Marktoberdorf to attend one of the most famous chamber choir competitions in the world. In the ten events which have been held to date, more than 160 choirs from 36 countries have demonstrated in exciting competitions and outstanding concerts the very best of choral music to be heard in the world today. Choral experts and the concert public are unanimous in their praise and enthusiasm: 'Many thanks for allowing this to happen and for working so hard to keep this competition on this very high artistic level.' (Maria Guinand, jury member from Venezuela).” [The Afro-Cuban composer, guitarist and conductor Leo Brouwer (b. 1939) is profiled at AfriClassical.com]

Cadenagramonte.cu: Students of Québec & Cuba in 'La Bella Cubana' of José White April 3, Las Tunas, Cuba

[José Silvestre White (1835-1918), shown here after he received the 1st prize for violin at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1856. Bibliothèque Nationale de France]

José Silvestre White (1835-1918) was an Afro-Cuban violinist who became a composer and professor after graduating from the Paris Conservatory. He is profiled at AfriClassical.com:

Radio Cadena Agramonte

“Cuban and Canadian Musicians Give Concert in Eastern Cuba

LAS TUNAS, Cuba, Apr 4.- Students from the art school “El Cucalambe” from Las Tunas, Cuba and from Quebec’s art school La Seigneurie, Canada gave a concert Sunday as closing of a trip for cultural exchange between the two schools. The students from both countries came together in a choir and a chamber orchestra to give the concert in which they interpreted songs from both countries, like La bella cubana by Jose White, and the Spring Anthem by Felix Leclerc.

“La Seigneurie’s director Gills Tetreaut said the concert was very good in spite of the few days the young musicians had to prepare it and rehearse and also the complexity of the repertoire. The group of 17 students of music and dance, and two professors from the Quebecois school has been in Cuba since March 26 on a program for cultural exchange that included visit to historical places, lectures about Cuba and exchange with students from Las Tunas, located in the eastern region of the island.”

NPR Blogs Alt Latino: Pablo Menéndez 'found refuge under the protection and musical mentorship of Leo Brouwer'

[TOP: The Classics of Cuba; Leo Brouwer, Guitar; LP Album (1972) BOTTOM: Pablo Menéndez]

NPR.org

Blogs

Alt Latino

From The Vault: Cuban Rock And The Revolution (Part 2)

Categories: From The Vault

03:54 pm

March 3, 2011

by Eric Zolov

This is the second installment in a two-part article about Cuban rock during the revolution. Check out part one here.

“Cuba, 1966.” “That October, Pablo Menéndez, a teenager from San Francisco with little Spanish — but a passion for guitar — arrived for what he expected to be an educational year abroad at Cuba's prestigious National Arts School (ENA). A year became a lifetime.”

“The ENA, where Pablo was enrolled, was unique to the Americas, if not the world. Children of peasants with little or no educational background mixed with urban educated youth, all committed to studying the arts. The comingling produced, as Menéndez later remarked, an 'explosion of creativity.'"

“By then, Menéndez was more committed than ever to the Cuban revolutionary project. Yet rock was officially deemed the music of imperialism by authorities. Though frustrated by the small-mindedness of officialdom, he also discovered that he was not alone in his urge to innovate.

“Other talented young artists such as Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés and Noel Nicola had their own run-ins with authorities. Around 1970, they migrated to the offices of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), where they found refuge under the protection and musical mentorship of Leo Brouwer, a like-minded yet classically trained guitarist.” [The Afro-Cuban composer, guitarist and conductor Leo Brouwer (b. 1939) is profiled at AfriClassical.com]

NYDailyNews.com: 'Composer Tania Leon's music to be played in her native Cuba for the first time'

[Tania León; Photo by Melville for New York Daily News]

NYDailyNews.com

Composer Tania Leon's music to be played in her native Cuba for the first time

BY Maite Junco

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, October 6th 2010

“Composer Tania León returns to Havana this week - 43 years after she left Cuba - to hear two of her works played in a festival. The music of the celebrated Cuban composer and conductor Tania León will be performed at a festival in her native island for the first time ever this week. 'This is a very personal trip,' said León, explaining that when she left Cuba to study in 1967, her beloved grandmother, a force in her musical career, begged her to stay. 'I told her to have faith, that I would return as a musician,' she said. 'I never forgot that conversation.'

“It has taken 43 years, but León, 67, a distinguished professor at Brooklyn College who heads the school's composition studies department, has been officially invited to Havana, where two of her works will be featured at the second annual Leo Brouwer Festival of Chamber Music, which starts Friday. León's impressive résumé includes being a founding member and the first music director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She has directed orchestras, and her music has been performed across the globe, from Paris to Beijing, from Johannesburg to Bogotá.

“This year, she was elected to a coveted membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her piece 'To and Fro (4 Moods),' from the CD 'Sonidos Cubanos,' is up next month for a 2010 Latin Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. Encouraged by her grandparents, León started taking piano lessons at a private conservatory in Havana when she was 4.

“'My grandfather bought me a real piano when I was 5 years old. You have to be crazy to do that,' she said with a laugh. After León left Cuba, she never saw her grandmother again; she died four years later. But she has traveled to the island through the years to visit her mother, Dora Ferrán, who just turned 85 and will be at the concert.” [The website of Tania Justina León (b. 1943) is http://www.tanialeon.com/; she is also profiled at AfriClassical.com]