Search Results for: Festival
Yissy García Calzadilla, former member of the Anacaona Orchestra, plays drums, timbal and bongo
On May 29, 1987, in Havana, Cuba, Yissy García Calzadilla was born.
With a great musical heritage that comes from her father and inspiration, Bernardo Garcia, who is a drummer of the ICRT Orchestra.
Since she was a child she has been inclined towards percussion and has her father as her first teacher.
At the age of 9 she began her elementary music studies at the “Manuel Saumell” school, later attending the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory where she excelled in the school’s Charanga band and was also a member of the Youth Symphony Orchestra.
As a student of the conservatory in 2004 she traveled to the island of Guadeloupe as part of a cultural exchange between music schools in both countries.
Also in 2005 she was invited as a soloist in the paila (Cuban percussion instrument) to play with the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba under the direction of the prestigious conductor Zenaida Romeu. In the same year she obtained the Special Prize of the “Fiesta del Tambor” contest.
In 2006 he travels to Barbados to participate with the “Quinteto Chico de la Habana” (a group of outstanding students of the conservatory) in the Barbados Jazz Festival and shares the stage with prestigious jazzmen such as Horacio Hernández (El Negro), Giovanni Hidalgo, Arturo Tappin (saxophonist) and Roy Hargrove (trumpeter), his performance is reviewed by international television stations and for the English newspaper Daily Niticns.
In November of the same year he obtains a Special Performance MECION at the International Festival of Young Jazz Players “JOJAZZ” and plays drums with the Big Band of Canada.
It is in this same year that she graduates in Percussion with excellent grades.
Once graduated, she joined the female orchestra Anacaona with which she made multiple performances on stages all over the country, and also performed on national television and radio, recorded the album “No lo puedo evitar” for the Bis Music label, and has also accompanied the Buena Vista Social Club diva Omara Portuondo.
With a small orchestra format, he recorded in 2008 the song “Parampampán”, for the musical film: “Chico y Rita” by the Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba. And also participates in another recording of traditional music with an American singer, both in the Areito studios of the EGREM.
In 2009 she made two important international tours with Anacaona, first in several Canadian cities, among them, performing at the “Art Jazz Festival” in Toronto, and in the Lula Lounge of the same city, the “30th Montreal International Jazz Festival”, alternating with the famous salsa singer “La India” with whom she was also invited to play, During the days of this great festival she participated very actively in various Jan sessions with Canadian musicians and musicians from other countries, in the city of London in the “Sunfest”, the Festival “La Nuit de Africa” in Montreal in its 27th edition and in the cities of Chicoutimi in the Festival “Rhythms of the World” and in the City of Quebec in its festival “Musics of the World” in addition to other venues in some of these cities, monopolizing in all many applause and congratulations for his outstanding performance.
In September 2010 the Aruba Jazz Festival is presented where they have the responsibility to close the festival and also perform with great success with saxophonist David Sanborn with whom they have the honor of downloading to close his performance the first day of the festival, for all this they are welcomed with great success by the public and the press.
He has worked in Cuba with other important jazzmen such as Alexis Bosh and Orlando Cubajazz.
He also performs for a special program on French TV channel 33 about his musical life and appears on a web page of the Spanish magazine “The H”.
He competes again in the JOJAZZ Contest and obtains the 2nd place in interpretation.
He has also recorded the Cuban Television program “A todo jazz” with trumpeter Roberto García and saxophonist Emir Santa Cruz, and with the group “Joven Jazz” led by saxophonist Michel Herrera, with whom he also performs in Havana’s Jazz clubs. He has worked with the outstanding trumpet player Yasser Manzano and his group.
In early 2010 he made the national tour of the singer Cucu Diamantes and also participates in the film that was recorded of the same.
In June 2010 he performed with Anacaona a successful tour of Curacao presenting the show “Viva Cuba”, in order to raise funds for the fight against breast cancer, organized by the Sinte Rose Foundation of that country and also close the 1st International Film Festival of Aruba.
Solo career
Yissy and Bandancha.
In 2012 she decided to embark on her solo career, debuting as composer and leader of the project YISSY & BANDANCHA, a quintet that develops jazz from the fusion with other genres.
She is regularly invited to participate in the most important festivals in Cuba, such as Jazz Plaza, JoJazz, Ellas Crean, Havana World Music Festival, among others.
Along with her project, she develops an intense work of collaboration in record productions and with various artists and recognized groups in the country, as is the case of Interactivo, Alexis Bosch and Telmary Diaz.
In 2014 he participated in Argentina in the festival El sur suena a cubano, along with Kelvis Ochoa, William Vivanco and Yusa, whom he also accompanied on his tour of Japan. He participated in the recording of the album Feeling Marta, by singer Gema Corredera, and accompanied the Buena Vista Social Club diva, Omara Portuondo, on her tour of Mexico.
Since that same year and until now, he is part of the line up of the band Maqueque, led by the renowned Canadian saxophonist Jane Bunnet, with whom he has played in the most important festivals in Canada and USA, in addition to having recorded the album Jane Bunnett and Maqueque, winner of the 2015 Juno Award for Best Jazz Album.
She began 2015 with the recording of her debut album Última noticia, and with a tour with her band YISSY & BANDANCHA through several cities in the USA.
She was included in a documentary for Brazilian TV directed by filmmaker Max Alvim, which aims to collect the most outstanding of the vanguard of Cuban jazz today.
She was part of the concert Women of the World, led by M Alfonso. She participated, together with Brazilian artist Baddi Assad, in the Les Voix Humains festival, held in Havana and organized by the Leo Brouwer Office.
Invited by the prestigious drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, she gave a clinic on Cuban rhythms at Berklee College of Music.
Meet The Dates Of Havana D’ Primera – Europe Tour 2022
Alexander Abreu & Havana D’ Primera will begin their concert tour in Serbia celebrating their 15-year artistic career
Alexander Abreu & Havana D’ Primera will visit Europe in September with their 2022 tour to celebrate their 15-year career with love and music, starting on Saturday, September 3rd in Belgrade (Serbia), and two days later they will step on the Bulgarian salsa stage (Monday, September 5th).
Subsequently, they will sing their repertoire in Spain (Seville, Madrid, Bilbao, and Barcelona) on September 8th, 9th, 23rd, and 30th, and will continue in France with two concerts: on Sunday 11th, they will be on stage on the Cabaret Sauvage (Paris), while the Sunday, September 25th, they will do so in the Patio de Camargue (Árles). In the same way, their tour of Germany (Hamburg) continues on Thursday, September 15th, and the 16th of this month, they will be in Finland, specifically in the capital city Helsinki.
The 2022 Tour continues in Italy (Florence and Naples) on September 17th and 21st. The latter will be in the Sweet Life concert hall located in the Somma Vesuviana municipality of the Neapolitan city.
On Thursday the 22nd, they will do the same at the Cuban Latin Festival in the Netherlands (Amsterdam) and will end their 2022 Tour 400 miles from Europe in Tunisia in the Yasmine Hammamet neighborhood located in the north of the African continent on Saturday, October 1st.
Alexander Abreu spent his childhood in the city of Cienfuegos (Cuba) where he began playing the trumpet at the age of ten and has currently become one of the most versatile and acclaimed Cuban musicians of Afro-Cuban music. “I have always seen Havana D’Primera with 15 people on stage and everyone said that it was impossible, that it would be too expensive, too difficult to move… This is how we started: 14 or 15 of us and a lot of positive energy, now we are stronger than ever.” Abreu commente.
Havana D’ Primera (HDP) is a Cuban timba band founded by Alexander Abreu in 2007 and made up of 17 of the best Cuban musicians. The orchestra is led by the main composer Abreu, who has stood out for his melodic voice and ability to fuse genres through Salsa such as Jazz, Funk, and other Afro-Cuban rhythms.
“Since its inception, the band has released five studio albums and one live album. The debut album release was Making History with EGREM in 2009 and their first release for the Páfata Productions record label. 2012’s Pasaporte received favorable reviews from the international press and was voted one of the best Latin alternative albums of that year.
Since then, they have followed the success of “Pasaporte” with four more albums, released through Páfata Productions and the last one in co-production with the Cuban Producciones Abdala.
HDP released “La Vuelta al Mundo” in 2015 and “Haciendo Historia LIVE” arrived in 2016. “Cantor del Pueblo” in early 2018, earning the band a Latin Grammy nomination for Best Salsa album. We cannot forget “A Romper el Coco” with the participation of Mayito Rivera released in 2019, and the single Quiero Verte Otra Vez (2020) which won the Special Prize at the 2020 Lucas Awards gala and was also cataloged by the French newspaper “Le Monde” as one of the favorite songs of Latin music.
Finally, in 2021 the album “Será Que Se Acabó” was released, as a tribute to Cuban popular music of the 80s and 90s. Discography extracted from the Biography of Havana D’ Primera.
You can read: Where to go dancing Salsa in Paris?
Salsa Invades Belgium In September
We tell you about 5 Salsa events that you cannot miss
Salsa Park
Caption: Food & Latin Music at Josaphat Park in Belgium
We started with the dance school specializing in Cuban Salsa, Cuban Style, and Rueda de Casino in the capital of Belgium (Brussels), Danza Mania. This academy with more than a decade of experience teaches Salsa classes for all levels with an emphasis on mastering combinations, movements, and figures in a fun and relaxed environment.
The Danza Mania’s motto https://danzamania.be/ is Dancing with Feeling, which is the motive to offer the last free workshop for all Salsa lovers on Friday, September 2nd.
At 7 PM the lessons will begin for those salseros who want to start in Cuban Salsa but don’t worry, they will also teach classes for intermediate and advanced levels. An hour after Salsa Party will begin with DJ Felito, and at 8:45 PM, there will be entertainment with the Danza Mania team. The workshop will end with the last Salsa Party with DJ Felito from 9 PM until dawn. Where? At La Laiterie in the heart of Josaphat Park, 1030, Schaerbeek, Belgium. Dare to participate and have a pleasant recreation at no cost in a warm and welcoming environment.
Axxes Café
Caption: A pleasant evening with dinner and lots of Salsa
We continue with the second recommendation in this edition and it is Axxes Café https://www.axxes.be/. In this venue, you can taste delicious Mexican dishes and tasty cocktails. Additionally you can dance to Latin rhythms such as Southern Salsa, Bachata, Merengue, and Kizomba every first Saturday of the month from 11:30 PM to 3 AM. Admission is free.
DJ Pepe is in charge of making this Salsa night a reality since last Saturday, July 22nd (2022). This resident DJ of Latin night in Belgium for almost two decades traveled for the first time to Old Havana (Cuba) in 1997, where he fell in love with this musical genre. Since then, he has been a faithful lover of Salsa, and is currently the organizer of the Salsa evening at the Salsa Axxes restaurant and café in the Kinepolis complex. Address: Groenendaallaan 396, 2030 Merksem. Enjoy the most southern atmosphere in Belgium!
Mambo Surge Weekend
Caption: Daily workshops from 1 PM to 6 PM
The second weekend of this month Mambo Surge Weekend www.mambosurge.com event will be held in its first edition with workshops (7 PM – 8 PM), shows (11 PM), and social events in three different rooms of the Theater of Dramatic Art OC Djoelen, Steenweg op Mol 3/Bus 2, Oud-Turnhout, Belgium from 9 PM.
Mambo Surge Weekend is a cooperation of experienced Salsa event organizers whose goal is to create quality events that spread love and passion for this Afro-Caribbean rhythm.
Mambo Surge Weekend is from September 9th to 10th and will feature the following local DJs team: DJ CyCy, DJ Asmadi, DJ Cisko, DJ Louis, and DJ Lukas “El Taz” mixing the best Caribbean music. The cost to attend this event is €80.
10 Dance Delirium Salsa Festival Gante
Caption: Tickets for the daily Salsa parties range from 10 EUR to 15 EUR
This seventh edition of the festival will take place from Friday, September 2nd to Sunday, September 4th and will be packed with three days and three nights of parties in two areas (Salsa/ Bachata), around 20 hours of varied workshops, shows from at 11:30 PM, meet & greet with national and international artists, and three DJs: DJ Willy VIP, DJ Cisko and DJ Alfons doing their best mixes.
The location for this edition of the 10 Dance Delirium Salsa Festival Ghent www.10dancefestival.be will be the modern dance complex, Doxtudio, located at Dok-Noord 7/107, Gent. The cost of the Full Pass is 85 EUR, and street parking will be free from 11 PM to 9 AM each day.
But, if you want to continue the fun with the team of the young and dynamic dance school in Ghent, Lékip Dance, Dox Summer Sundays 2022 will take place on Sunday, September 11th, with two hours of lessons. From 8 PM to 9 PM the Afro Body Movement class will be held, and an hour later, you will be able to do the Rueda Cuban Style lesson by the pair of instructors Osbanis & Anneta from Poland.
Michiel Braam: The Virtuous Pianist from Nijmegen
Two years after the creation of the Latin Jazz album XYZ with Son Bent Braam
Michiel Braam presented XYZ at the Music Meeting Festival. “The festival takes place in Nijmegen, where I was born (1964), grew up, and still live”. Foto: Marjan Smeijsters
Virtuous pianist, masterful producer, and surprising composer. Winner of the Podium award (1998) and Boy Edgar (1996/1997). Musician trained by conviction and at the ArtEZ Music Academy in Arnhem. His lifestyle is synchrony between freedom, creativity, teaching, and love. It is how he presents us his life and his works in Nijmegen, Michiel Braam.
This friendly artist with a protective childhood where love prevailed always had the support and freedom to develop and create everything he considered necessary to him. Michiel is the only one in his family who turned to music professionally, but the rhythm of melodies runs through his veins. His parents played the piano self-taught. His mother wrote notes while his father just improvised.
During high school, he participated in a band for which he wrote and arranged all the music. He studied at the conservatory and founded his more minor quartet Bentje Braam (“Little Band Braam”) in 1985. In the same year, he traveled with his band to Sweden to be the first Dutch group to open the EBU Jazz Festival and wrote his first composition for the Dutch radio “Cows and Beasts”. A year later, he created the band Bik Bent Braam.
“Music is, as long as I know, everything to me. I feel better with music. I dance when I’m happy, and music comforts me when I’m not doing so well… It seemed like a logical step to pursue what I enjoyed most.” Michiel Braam https://www.michielbraam.com/
By 1988 Braam had had no contact with Latin music until percussionist André Groen asked him to be the pianist for his Orquesta Europea de Danzón. In this regard, this wonderful pianist told us: “He wanted a pianist who had a wild free Jazz attitude and who didn’t only play the well-known Latin patterns because he thought that fitted better with the authentic Cuban music. That music immediately appealed to me, especially because of its rhythmic impact, but also because as a pianist, you have a lot of freedom to go in all directions during improvisations. I have touched on those Latin patterns to some extent and in the course of the 10 years that I played in that orchestra I managed to master them better, but it was mainly the combination of freedom and rhythm. That orchestra lasted ten years and we celebrated the thirtieth anniversary in 2018 with a couple of concerts. Great to do that again and I felt again exactly why I found it so appealing back then”.
In 1988 Michiel won the Podium Prize, an encouragement prize for Dutch Jazz music and in 1996/1997 he won the Boy Edgar, the highest prize for Dutch Jazz.
This pianist, the architect of great projects, built a party based on the Latin alphabet of Western culture on the album XYZ released in 2020, creating a danceable mix that includes Mambo, Rumba, Son, Danzón, Boogaloo, Calypso, Rumba, Bembé, Mozambique, Samba, Afro, Bolero, Cha-cha, Merengue, Bembé, and Samba. Michiel is also the Director of the Jazz and Pop department of the ArtEZ conservatory and founded a Danzón orchestra. Now, I leave you with the rest of this wonderful interview that I had the opportunity to do with the great Maestro Michiel Braam. Enjoy!
They have played on the ZomerJazzFiets tour, North Sea Jazz, and Bimhuis. Likewise, some of the members of the orchestra are fluent in Spanish.
– How did the idea of the Latin jazz album XYZ come about?
In 1995 I wrote “The XYZ of Bik Bent Braam” for my big orchestra at the time, Bik Bent Braam (phonetic Dutch for “Big Band Braam”). I thought it would be fun to make a festive version of it to celebrate the 25th anniversary. The XYZ was (and is) a 26-part suite, with a piece for each letter of the alphabet, starting with Aardedonker (English title Atramentous, Spanish Apagado, both not exact translations…) and ending with Zwoerdspek (Zaftig, Zafio). I revisited all the pieces in 2020 and paired various styles with the original material. In the 1995 original, they were mostly jazz-like styles (bebop, free improv, swing, jazz ballad, etc), but Chachachtig was a rumba even then. It is the only piece that has not changed its mood substantially.
– What happened to the previous members and how did the new members take hold?
The original orchestra Bik Bent Braam was composed of top musicians from the Dutch improvised music scene. The orchestra existed from 1986 to 2013 and had a number of lineup changes. In the final version of Bik Bent Braam there were only a few members left from the very beginning. That the musicians of Bik Bent Braam could read well was not really a requirement, the core was affinity with swing and great improvisational skills. For this new version, it was important not only that the musicians were excellent improvisers, but also that they had to have a feel for Latin music and also that they were outstanding readers, because I did not foresee that there would be very much rehearsal time and the notes are quite challenging. Bik Bent Braam was subsidized with government funding and I could then easily occupy a longer period with many rehearsals. Son Bent Braam, the current line-up, does not have its own subsidy, so we have to look at each concert and hope that everyone can make it. There have been quite a few subs, and they too have to be able to improvise and read well.
– Tell us about your Danzón orchestra.
André (André Groen – Percussionist) wanted to immerse himself in traditional Cuban music. There is so much richness in the danzón with its fixed forms that pass by in each piece with the most beautiful melodies and the wildest spaces for improvising on highly danceable rhythms. We found the instrumentation with violins, cello, flute, percussion, double bass, and piano attractive. After ten years I got too busy with my jazz ensembles, by then I was touring all over the world with Bik Bent Braam and other groups and especially with my Trio BraamDeJoodeVatcher. I could hardly combine it anymore with the Danzón Orchestra and the great pianist Peter van Marle took my place, which made me feel very humble. The European Danzón Orchestra then existed for another year or so. I honestly don’t know why it stopped then. In 2018 we did a couple of reunion concerts, great fun to do.
– How many years have you been in charge of the Jazz and Pop department of the ArtEZ conservatory and what do you teach the new generations based on your experience?
I have been head of the program since 1992. It is part of a broad arts university and is located in a building that also houses dance, theater, fine art, applied art, fashion, and creative writing. As a head, I don’t teach very much… only when students very specifically ask for it a few hours of individual lessons per year and a few group lessons, and I also regularly give master students some lessons. My message is usually quite short and clear: there are millions of people who play an instrument excellently, and you can probably teach an orangutan to play Keith Jarrett better than Keith does himself, but – apart from the fact that that would be a fun YouTube hit – there is no point; in our music, it is almost all about an authentic voice, including all the shortcomings that are in everyone, which also make you a unique musician. Obviously, you must have many skills as a musician, but my life motto is that one’s deficiencies are far more important for one’s personality than one’s skills, and that attitude underlies my whole vision of art education.
“With Nos Otrobanda have started to concentrate on the music of Noro Morales and have his composition Maria Cervantes (single) firmly in our program. His music will probably be the subject of our new album”. Foto: Marjan Smeijsters
– What are your next projects?
Everything is starting up again post-covid. I want to record a solo album on my grand piano, a so-called “Alurip”. That’s an aluminum grand piano made in the fifties with a specific sound. And the album of our trio Nos Otrobanda, which specializes in Antillean music, is almost sold out. That doesn’t matter obviously, if there are no more physical copies then you can always hear the music through iTunes, Spotify, etc, but it’s a great opportunity to make new recordings again and the intention is to go to Curacao and record music in the Fortkerk in Willemstad, the place where we did a couple of concerts in 2018. That was a great experience, what a nice place and sweet audience!
– How was the process to make a living from music?
I stuck pretty firmly to the rule that you have to do what you like and not let yourself be distracted too much from that. And I look for what it takes to make it happen. From 1996 to 2012 I received an annual government subsidy to realize my projects. I am also a real musician in the sense that I have a mixed professional practice (playing, writing, teaching, producing, almost every musician has roughly that mix) which means that it is always possible to make a living out of it and we never had to worry about bread and a place to live.
Michiel Braam & Son Bent Braam Orchestra. Foto: Marjan Smeijsters
I make music mainly because I can’t do otherwise. Music is a way to communicate; it makes you a little better… Leitmotiv in everything is that in music, I am free to do anything I want. For example, I did play Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the exquisite reed quintet Calefax, also improvising on the various songs from that opera.” Michiel Braam