Search Results for: Cuban
Argentine-American composer and guitarrist Alejandro Meola kindly talked to us
There is a country we do not usually talk much about in this edition, but we have found the best moment to do so, and it is the land of tango and mate, Argentina. It turns out that, on this occasion, we talked with composer, singer and guitarist Alejandro Meola, who has honored us by accepting our invitation to this very special exclusive interview we had.
Alejandro Meola is an artist who was born in the city of Miami, but his parents moved to Argentina when he was very young, so he spent his childhood and adolescence in the aforementioned country. In his accent, we can see how influential his upbringing in Buenos Aires was.
Next, we will touch some of the most important issues related to his career and his life in general.

Alejandro’s beginnings in music
As is typical, Alejandro began to feel a great attachment to music and it all started with the guitar that was in the house he grew up, with which he played at an amateur level and began practicing slowly and improving his skills over time. He says he always knew that his vocation was music, even without being old enough to decide on these issues.
Given that the guitar was the instrument with which he started in music, this will always be the most important element in his artistic life above any other. However, he is also capable of playing other instruments such as piano, drums and bass, which can transport him to places within his mind where the guitar does not always take him.
With regard to composition, Alejandro started to develop in this area through the need to express those emotions he had on the inside and communicate what his feelings in an original way with the help of music and the melodies that compose it. ‘‘I like to communicate things that resonate in other people’s minds and that’s where my taste for composition came from. Besides, I think that practice and time improve your ability to communicate emotions and transmit messages to anyone who listens to you. That evolves with oneself” said the artist.
Alejandro’s musical education
Alejandro told us that he studied at a music school in Argentina where he specialized more on guitar and composition, but what he calls ”street training” also helped him a lot to polish his act as an artist. The experience gained out the academies is so important to Alejandro that he even defines it as ”a parallel university”, which is as important as formal academic training, if not more.
”It’s the street that gives you the tools, the experience and the journey to be a more complete artist. Practice on real stages is critical to specialize in music as it should be” Alejandro said on the subject.

Argentine and American roots in Alejandro’s work
Hearing Alejandro play evidences that he is heavily influenced by legendary and world-famous Argentine rock and the artist confirms this stating that he listened a lot to Fito Paez, Soda Stereo, Charlie Garcia, Gustavo Cerati, Luis Albert Spinetta, Andres Calamaro, among others. Undoubtedly, all of these music luminaries played a very important role on how this young man would perceive music, adding to all the American rock and blues he would listen to upon arrival in the United States.
However, he noted that being in the United States also allowed him to listen to a number of Latin artists and rhythms which he never planned on experimenting with, but he did. His song ”La Inmigración” is a good example of this. In that regard, living in New York has expanded his horizons and led him to discover salsa, Cuban and Puerto Rican music. He also says that he took inspiration from Héctor Lavoe, Cheo Feliciano and La Fania when doing one or two songs.
”At the end of the day, my music is a mixture of who I am and the places I’ve lived. A little from there, a little from here and a little from nowhere (laughs). A little from everywhere and a little from nowhere” he said.
Alejandro also said that he is always on the lookout for other rhythms and ideas that come his way, but always using rock and guitar as a starting point.

Why Alejandro chose New York as his permanent residence
Since he was very young, Alejandro had always wanted to experience the dream of living and working in his art in New York. In addition to that, he wanted to know other cities in the country where he was born because while it is true that he spent most of his life in Argentina, he was also very clear that his country of birth was the United States, so he was curious to know it better.
Once in New York, I met all kinds of people and artists with a very high musical level, so I was able to learn a lot from all of them. I feel like the bar is rising here and that led me to want to improve further every day. In that sense, I feel that New York gives you thick skin, since there are many obstacles to overcome to be truly recognized in music” said Alejandro about the city.
The artist has been living in New York for 10 years now and is at ease in the place in which he currently is. In addition, he has managed to find a niche singing in Spanish, which has made him very happy and satisfied with his career.
How Alejandro deals with languages in his music
Something very common that many well-known artists do is to record songs in both English and Spanish so that the audience they reach is bigger, but Alejandro does not believe in it. He thinks that each song must have its own language and feeling, so he prefers to do one version of each song in one language.
When he arrived in New York, he experimented a lot with English and has several albums in this language, but noting that he could work with Spanish without problems, he began to focus his music in that direction. In fact, today, almost all of his concerts are in Spanish.
Each language has its advantages and disadvantages in terms of sound, so I must always pay attention to that,” said Alejandro on the subject.
It has been a great pleasure for us to count on the talented Argentinean singer Alejandro Meola for this edition and we wish him the greatest success in his career from now on.
Read also: El Tresero Moderno San Miguel Perez
Samuel Quinto Feitosa is a Brazilian virtuoso jazz and classical pianist
Samuel Quinto Feitosa, FRSA (born September 5, 1973) is a Brazilian jazz, pop, gospel and classical pianist, as well as music producer, composer, arranger, educator and writer living in Portugal since 2004.
Quinto grew up in Salvador, where he developed his art mainly with the piano. Samuel Quinto was born in Belém, Pará, but grew up in Salvador, Bahia.

Since the age of seven, he developed his musical talent by virtue of the contact with the piano through the gospel, accompanied by the Baptist Church that he studied during his childhood with his family in Salvador.
Then Samuel took the first steps on the piano in the family home, always without accompanying teachers, and developed his piano skills learning also, as self-taught, harmony, reading and writing music and orchestration, musical composition, arrangements for the church choir, which begins to play as a pianist at the age of 12 years. In Europe.
Samuel Quinto released his first CD “Latin Jazz Thrill” in 2007, in Portugal, with trio formation (Bass, Piano and Drums), which formed the core of his repertoire in various festivals and concerts during the years 2007 and 2008 in Portugal.
During his 2008 tour he performed in cities such as Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Heilbronn, Liège and Limoges; in addition to a special concert held in Salvador in collaboration with the Catholic University of Salvador in June 2008. His compositions are used at the University of Porto (ESMAE) in the Jazz degree, as study material in the training of Jazz students.
The second CD entitled “Salsa ‘n Jazz”, containing eight original compositions by Samuel Quinto, and the standard Stella by Starlight, is released in June 2009 with a concert in the city of Porto, and the concomitant launch of his new tour.

Even more extensive, which passed through Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands and England. In this second work, Samuel was accompanied by another Brazilian, classically trained, Marcos Borges on bass and Manuel Santiesteban, Cuban, graduated in drums in Havana, Cuba.
He founded the first Latin Jazz course at the North Jazz School, Porto – first professional Jazz school accredited in Portugal and one in the Iberian Peninsula to have the Professional Jazz Instrumentalist course until then.
Besides being invited to be the artistic director of one of the most traditional Portuguese jazz clubs, Si bemol.
Samuel has also been invited to conduct workshops in the field of Jazz, Latin Jazz Composition and Arranging both in Brazil and Europe. But his musical talent is not only to jazz, after having been a pianist of the corps de ballet, he began to develop the scholar side of his music.
Inspired by great composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and others, he began compositions to accompany ballet in performances, as well as for orchestra and choir. _ (allaboutjazz)
There is something about Brazilian-born pianist Samuel Quinto that strikes a vibrant chord in the inner ear. Perhaps it has to do with his wonderful grasp of the joy that abounds in the Brazilian northeast.
His sense of “joy”. Perhaps it also has to do with his mature approach, his wonderful use of dynamics, his expression and his innate ability to allow the tonal center of his music to shine.
He has an exquisite ear and his hands are independently controlled by his mind, which separates melody and harmony when necessary.
Quinto, as a result, makes his fingers tingle on the keys, rumble and guffaw and cry with chords from which he wrings laughter and sadness and pure joy.
In Salsa’ N Jazz he plays with a primal hypnotic rhythm that calls to the roots of his music, which reach all the way to deepest Africa, through the folk corners of Brazil and Spain, which means the Mediterranean nooks and crannies of the Middle East, India and Europe.

The result is a discotheque where these cultures converge in a point of ignition that warms the blood of the soul. His playing is muscular and intuitive and smacks of an artist who likes to invent on the fly, to constantly evolve.
The starting point of Quinto’s playing is also a deeply symbiotic relationship with forro music in all its vibrant splendor-baiao, xote and arrasta-pe-all elegantly captured and sparkling as his fingers touch ebony and ivory.
The most joyous and memorable display of this is her rendition of Victor Young’s “Stella by Starlight,” which gets a rousing liner treatment and reaches its climax as the song’s choruses unfold.
It is worth mentioning that on this song – as on the others on this album – Brazilian bassist Marcos Borges and Cuban drummer Manuel Santiesteban shine with their wonderful interplay.
Samuel Quinto is also an accomplished composer and demonstrates maturity and a sense of adventure with the rhythmic variety he presents here in a rumba, “Quinto’s Rhumba” which, by the way, is played in a deliciously choppy style reminiscent of Thelonious Monk.
“Jaci” is an exciting, danceable song that crosses Cuban rhythms with a touch of Brazil.
“Bolero To Preta,” an affectionate semblance of the pianist’s mother, suggests that the pianist has a lot of inner clave.
“Ficou No Meio” is simply a marvelous forro that becomes dizzying as Quinto, Borges and Santiesteban gloriously rumba in harmony and rhythm.
Santiesteban gloriously ruminate the harmony and rhythm.
“Voo Da Andorinha” is a chorinho that, quite simply, reveals Quinto’s “Alma de Nordeste”. And “Isabel (Para Voce)” is a beautiful ballad that shimmers and shines as its emotive tonal colors begin to unfold.
“Salsa’ N Jazz” is an emblematic song that captures everything unforgettable about this album: a pianist with the ability to dazzle in silence while the right hand flies exotically and the left constantly invents harmony and rhythm.
Here is a very promising pianist, who brings with him his rich Brazilian tradition and, indeed, all of Latin America, a new and exciting musical landscape. _
Raul D’Gama Rose
Samuel Quinto Trio – Salsa’N Jazz (2009).
Musicians:
Samuel Quinto (Piano)
Marcos Borges (Bass)
Manuel Santiesteban (Drums)
Information provided (September 16, 2023)
Samuel Quinto Feitosa (Neuroscientist and Musician)
Omara Portuondo announces world tour
Latin America / Cuba / La Habana
Cuban singer Omara Portuondo will embark on a world tour in April that will take her to places in the United States and Europe in a first stage, the artist announced at a press conference.

“Omara es Cuba” gives its name to the tour that will start on the 19th at the Regent Theater in the city of Los Angeles, and has concerts scheduled in New York, Chicago, Holland, Hungary, Singapore, South Korea, Canada and France . Among other countries, in some of which it will be presented for the last time.

For the month of November, the Bride of Feeling, as the artist is also known, has planned performances in South America on stages in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.
The tour, which will last until 2020, will close this year with a great concert on the island.
For the occasion, the Cuban diva will be accompanied by talented musicians: pianist Roberto Fonseca, Andrés Coayo (percussion), Ruly Herrera on drums and bassist Yandy Martínez.

Fonseca stated that it is an honor to share the stage with Portuondo, whom she considers a universal singer who has gone through all styles but always maintaining her Cuban identity.
The repertoire of the tour will include classics performed by the artist throughout his career, including some from his time at the Buena Vista Social Club, an “all-star” project of which Portuondo was the main voice since its creation in 1997.

The 88-year-old artist is one of the most successful and beloved Cuban singers in Cuba, her discography includes thirty titles and she has recorded with the most notable Cuban and foreign artists.
Awarded the National Music Award (2006), she was also awarded a Latin Grammy for Best Contemporary Tropical Album in 2009 for her album “Gracias”.

Cubarumba Tataguines in memoriam International Festival in its second edition.
Latin America / Cuba / La Habana
The National Center for Popular Music invites you to participate in the Cubarumba Tataguines in memoriam International Festival in its second edition.
It will be held in Havana from June 28-30, 2019. With the aim of Honoring the memory of Tata güines, Stimulating the artistic creation of rumba groups from the community, encouraging children’s projects based on the folkloric and musical genre, highlight the social value of the rumba as intangible heritage of humanity.

Likewise, to carry out a national and international workshop based on the pedagogical need to strengthen cultural nationality by art students in Cuba on the basis of the figure of tata güines, the fundamental foundation that promoted the proclamation of Rumba as Intangible Heritage of Humanity. . With this goal we urge all young people, students who wish to participate in the Festival through the following themes:
Themes:
- Cultural educational practices
- Potential value of transformation of the percussive theory of Tata güines.
- Main factors that slow down or facilitate the descending of the Rumba genre as a percussion modality.
- Ethical and aesthetic values promoted by the practice of percussion
- Challenges to perfect percussive techniques
- Creation and promotion of Cuban art
- Young rumbero, possibility of cultural advancement. Harvested experiences and challenges for the present and immediate future.
- Others
The venue will take place at the Turf Night Club
General program:
Press conference
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Venue: El Turf Night Club
Address: F Street between Calzada and Quinta Vedado
Time: 2pm
Participation: Press-Radio-Television-Guests
Duration: 1h
toast to daddy
Place House Museum Tata güines
TIME: 3 PM
Event schedule:
Thursday, June 27
- 8:00 Opening Gala Avellaneda Hall of the National Theater
Cast Subject to change
- Tata guines Jr.
- Makuta Flow
- Rumbansoc
- Ronald and his Rumbera explosion
- Denis and his swing
- Vania Borges
- Iannna Wobble
Friday, June 28
Venue: Club Noturno El Turf
- 9:00 Inaugural Conference
- 10:00 Recess
- 10:30 Percussion and dance workshops
- 12:30 Demonstration group
- 1:30 Visit Tata Guines House Museum
- 2:00 Lunch
Cultural
Devil Tun Tun: 4pm to 6pm.
Show Woman in the rumba
Omini Bata-Rumba Morena
- 6:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tataguines/Ochareo Group
- 10-2am Venue: Club Norturno El Turf Shows with rumba groups
Explosion Rumbera/Rumbavila/Rumbansoc/
Saturday, June 29
Venue: Club Noturno El Turf
- 9:00 Inaugural Conference
- 10:00 Recess
- 10:30 Percussion and dance workshops
- 12:30 Demonstration group
- 2:00 Lunch
Cultural
- 3:00 Clave de Rumba folkloric ensemble / children’s project.
- 8pm-2am Venue: El Turf Timbalaye Nightclub /Rumberos de Cuba/Rumbansoc/ Tata güines
Sunday, June 30
Venue: El Turf Night Club
- 9:00 Report of the event. Delivery of Certificates.
- 10:00 Recess
- 10:30 Symposium Asocosalsa Cuba
- 5:00 Cinema Avenue Closing Gala
- 10:00 Final reception.
Festival Project
Event Organizing Committee:
Víctor Rodríguez García: Executive Director
Arturo Soto Martínez: Chairman of the Event
Suset Núñez Vázquez: CNMP Events Coordinator
Osorio García Rule: CNMP Events Department
Brigitte Oliva: General Producer

Company National Center for Popular Music
INTRODUCTION
The Cubarumba 2019 Tata güines in memoriam project is a previous interactive festival that consists of pedagogical, competitive, sociocultural moments that will transfer original Cuban music, through percussion and dance workshops, interaction with the community, as well as shows of this genre, intangible heritage of the humanity, the evident and permanent need to rescue Cuban roots, and the representation of the name Tata güines, a national and international figure. Following this trilogy as a cultural line, the president of the festival Arturo Soto Martínez advocates for this event.
Carrying out research, it is verified that this festival has a high tourist level, which causes a useful strategy to penetrate tourists about our idiosyncrasy and traditions, in addition to giving an unforgettable moment to all those who are present at that moment.
If we observe the social gaze, we realize the motivation of society in general since we encourage in the community a hope of cultural revival, a festival of inclusion in all senses since people of all ages and disabilities participate. Achieving a mutual interaction that achieves as a result an inclusion of this musical genre in daily life and in the tastes of all the people who enjoy it.
It is emphasized that times are changing, however it is important to take actions so that the celebrations of our origin are not forgotten, it is about looking for very frequent actions that work with everyday life, exclusivity, professionalism and good taste that keep this celebration alive. choice for youth not only in our country but around the world
For all the above, the need for this culturally artistic project becomes evident, specifically in these places where a large foreign crowd is concentrated, since it is unaware of Cuban culture. Relying on the battle of ideas that we have daily for the rejection of national identity, this project that settles the roots, that remembers the past, that discloses our present and that above all that is written increases love is evident, permanent and necessary. for Cuban culture.
DEVELOPING
- Goals:
- Honor the memory of Tata güines
- Stimulate the artistic creation of rumba groups from the community
- Encourage children’s projects based on the folkloric and musical genre.
- Highlight the social value of the rumba as intangible heritage of humanity
Themes:
- Cultural educational practices
- Potential value of transformation of the percussive theory of Tata güines.
- Main factors that slow down or facilitate the descending of the Rumba genre as a form of percussion.
- Ethical and aesthetic values promoted by the practice of percussion
- Challenges to perfect percussive techniques
- Creation and promotion of Cuban art
- Young rumbero, possibility of cultural advancement. Harvested experiences and challenges for the present and immediate future.
- Others
PARTICIPATION METHOD
- Delegates
- Student
- Musicians
- Guests
REGISTRATION FEES: DELEGATES
Foreigners………………50 cuc includes participation in the event, certificate and/or credits.
Cubans …………………….250 cup includes food, participation, certification and/or credits
Cuban students ……………..125 cup includes food, participation, certification and/or credits
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
GENERAL OBJECTIVE
Carry out an international rumba festival based on the artistic value of the figure of tata güines in the world on the basis of the Rumba proclamation as Intangible Heritage of Humanity
Goals:
- Honor the memory of Tata güines
- Stimulate the artistic creation of rumba groups from the community
- Encourage children’s projects based on the folkloric and musical genre.
- Highlight the social value of the rumba as intangible heritage of humanity
| Specific Objectives | Actions | Indicators | Participants | Responsible |
| Honor the memory of Tata güines | Hold the Cubarumba Tataguines Festival in memoriam | Conciliation Company, Sponsors, | Organizing Committee | Event Leader |
| Stimulate the artistic creation of rumba groups from the community | Theoretical-practical dance and percussion workshops, presentation of youth groups in event activities | Conciliation with Artex, Egrem. | Cuban and foreign population | Org Committee |
| Encourage children’s projects based on the folkloric and musical genre.
|
Activity in the National Folkloric Ensemble of Cuba, headquarters for the socialization of children’s projects | Address of Palenque, Production | Org Committee | Event Leader |
| Highlight the social value of the rumba as intangible heritage of humanity | Activity the woman in the rumba, the longest rumba, the rumba and its youth, the rumba does include you | Group Directors | Production | Event Leader |

Beneficiary population:
Directly, the population that benefits is Cuban and foreign, since in some way the project is aimed at educating, including, transforming the culture of these times that affects this population.
For this, their full participation is needed, in the first order the attention that is very important, then the interest in dance and percussion and the decline that forms the taste for this musical genre.
Also highlighting the importance of the social inclusion of people with disabilities, we can mention that the festival has the honor of promoting groups with different disabilities. Example of the incursion of culture in Cuba.



































































