Twenty-nine years ago, in mid 1993 in the middle of the Special Period, Pablo Milanés managed to create and lead the first independent, self-financing and non-ideological cultural organization in Cuba.
The Pablo Milanés Foundation was also the first —and so far the only— private entity created by a Cuban artist based on his own economic resources to promote and encourage cultural activity. It also turned out to be the first private initiative of Afro-descendant intellectuals that has legally existed in Cuba after 1959.
The foundation as a legal form of association had only three antecedents in the cultural field in revolutionary Cuba, all with private participation, but financed by the State and therefore under its total control: the New Latin American Cinema Foundation, the Nicolás Guillén Foundation and the Alejo Carpentier Foundation. That of Pablo Milanés would be different, since it would dispense with state financing, although it could not do so with a certain degree of tutelage.
A dream come true
Since the beginning of the decade, Pablo, with a group of close friends, had been shaping the dream of creating an institution with the capacity to have and sustain its own capital — something unprecedented and controversial in the country up to now — destined to support and promote young emerging artists and their projects not only in music, but also in art in its broadest sense.
In fact, before the Foundation was officially constituted, Pablo had already become patron and promoter, promoting a possible youth symphony orchestra directed by Leo Brouwer, a movement of young sculptors, a house of poetry represented by the avant-garde, a theater project, a chamber orchestra made up of girls graduated from the National School of Art, according to what he told Spanish journalist Mauricio Vicent.
Pablo’s initiative took shape at a time when the economic crisis in the country, after the collapse of the socialist camp, limited the capacity and resources of the Ministry of Culture and, at a higher level, compelled the Cuban government to make flexible the productive structures and certain spaces in ownership relations.
When on Wednesday, June 23, 1993, Pablo Milanés and Armando Hart — then Minister of Culture — signed the entity’s constitutive agreement, a question loomed over everyone’s heads: to what extent would the luminous and transcendental idea of the singer-songwriter manage to remain and advance in a political and work space in which the State exercised the strictest control. The détente seemed not to be dictated by the conviction of the need for him in the plural space that Cuban society should be, but by the circumstances of the economy.
The initial capital to create the Pablo Milanés Foundation was set at $160,000, donated entirely by the singer-songwriter, to which would be added the income that Pablo would generate from that moment on in three ways and that previously went to the Ministry of Culture’s account: concert tours with his group, record editions and copyrights.
As explained by an anonymous collaborator interviewed in 1993 by the Spanish newspaper El País, “for his tours, records and copyrights, Pablo annually gave the Ministry of Culture figures of more than six zeros,” a value that he calculated close to 92% of his income. The singer-songwriter had to fight hard to convince the authorities that these amounts had another management and destination from that moment on: the Foundation’s funds.
Regarding the projects that he would support, Pablo was emphatic the day the existence of the cherished dream was made official: “The foundation has no ideological purpose. What matters to us is quality and not political militancy.”
Immediately, the PM Foundation aroused the support of highly renowned intellectuals and musicians both in Cuba and abroad. It was thus demonstrated that the singer-songwriter’s sphere of influence was already immense.
Prestige and commitment
In addition to the financial funds provided, the PM Foundation could count on other capital: Pablo’s international prestige, his convening power and his magic to spread enthusiasm and attract efficient support.
By the 1990s, the authority that Pablo had earned beyond the Cuban borders was founded on his enormous and revolutionary contribution to music, his commitment to his country and his nation.
The way in which his imprint spread rapidly since the 1960s was already very notable, not only throughout the Latin American continent at the height of an emancipatory process, but also in the Iberian Peninsula, where he inspired young people who were awakening from a prolonged dictatorship and dealing with its effects in the post-war period.
Pablo had been capable of being continuity and renewal of the rich tradition of Cuban song, of all its music, from the old trova and the son, to the feeling, to weave with lasting threads the framework of his essential and original contribution to the so-called New Song Movement.
It is enough to take a look at some of the names that, in support of the Foundation, made up its Board of Honor in an advisory and consultative capacity, to appraise the intellectual height and international recognition of those who integrated it, willing, with the sole request of Pablo, to contribute materially and spiritually to the projects that the singer-songwriter sponsored: Nelson Mandela, Gabriel García Márquez, Leo Brouwer, Alicia Alonso, Mario Benedetti, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Chucho Valdés, Alfredo Guevara, Oswaldo Guayasamín, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Eliseo Diego, Joaquín Sabina, Eduardo Galeano, Rafael Alberti, Pedro Almodóvar, Teddy Bautista, Luis Eduardo Aute, Antonio Gades, Charo López, Paco Rabal, Joan Manuel Serrat, Miriam Makeba, Harry Belafonte, Chico Buarque, Ernesto Cardenal, Sergio Ramírez, Rigoberta Menchú, Juan Echanove…. Without a doubt, the founding agreement created by Pablo Milanés filled everyone with hope and enthusiasm.
A non-transferable privilege
By 1993, Pablo was the light in my life. Through his songs and those of Silvio, I had discovered not only the glorious epic and the shaking poetry of my times, but also an unknown side of the roots of my identity. Pablo led me over and over again through the unmistakable routes of the traditional trova and the more rooted son.
Through Pablo I got to know the beautiful voice of María Teresa Vera, the painful inspiration at times, exultant others, of Sindo Garay and Manuel Corona; the virtuoso strings of El Albino and Cotán, the montuna chronicle and the unparalleled cadence of Compay Segundo.
In the days of The Mamas and The Papas, Fifth Dimension, Beatles, Irakere and Van Van, Pablo made me delve into my roots and discover the sublime of the past of which I was also made. At the same time that, with a sonority and poetry of unknown charm, he spoke to me of love and heartbreak, of Cuban identity and nation, of the social commitment in the face of a genocidal war in Vietnam, of the fight of Afro-Americans for their rights, of daily life on an island we love.
Pablo was for me, then, close and unattainable at the same time, from that imprecise distance where admiration locates our divinities, those of our personal imagination.
The brothers Omar and Orlando Hechavarría, very close to the singer-songwriter, devised my approach to him and the essential group of the PM Foundation. It is something for which I will always be grateful, because it was much more than what I could have dreamed of then. Working close to Pablo Milanés was decisive in my professional path and my life experience. A non-transferable privilege.
Entering the old and elegant house on 11th Street every day began to be a trip to the center of the creative passion and to Cuban being, to which we all consciously allowed ourselves to be dragged. This was an oasis in the middle of everything else.
A place of pilgrimage and creation
Pablo’s friends came there every day. They were among the best of the Cuban intelligentsia at that time, now committed to dreaming and doing: I remember singer and composer Eduardo Ramos, writer Eliseo Altunaga, poet Nancy Morejón, journalist and writer Víctor Águila, journalist and editor Amado Córdova; friends from the early days of the New Song Movement like the promoters Ciro Benemelis, Gil Lino Suárez, Sareska Escalona, Mariana Rivas, and others — I include myself — like Noel Álvarez, Daysi Díaz, Hilda Barrio, Rebeca González, Odette Pantoja, who vibrated with Pablo’s work and ideas, embodied in the Foundation, and we did our best for them.
It was impossible for it not to be so: Pablo’s charisma, the magic that he gave off, the way in which he grounded the concreteness and earthiness of his dreams and projects, exuded the poetics of his songs.
During the twenty-four months of its existence, the mansion that housed the Pablo Milanés Foundation was the closest thing to a place of pilgrimage where artists from all over the country arrived, projects in hand, to submit them for Pablo’s consideration and win his backing and material support.
Much was done at that time and many projects were carried out with the financial and practical support of Pablo Milanés and his Foundation. Here are just a few that I remember:
Of the most important groups that the Foundation assumed under his material supervision, the Camerata Romeu stands out, conceived and directed by Zenaida Romeu; the Exaudi and Schola Cantorum Coralina choirs, led by María Felicia Pérez and Alina Orraca, respectively, and the Yoruba Andabo group, which had been established as a professional group in 1981 directed by Pancho Quinto.
PM Records, the recording arm of the Foundation directed by Eduardo Ramos, while trying to work with established artists such as Pablo himself, Elena Burke, Omara Portuondo, also did so primarily with young emerging singer-songwriters such as Polito Ibáñez, Frank Delgado or Raúl Torres, whose success they owe not only to the remarkable personal talent that at that time seemed inexhaustible in the singer-songwriter, but to a large extent, to the patronage and personal support of Pablo Milanés, who promoted their career on a national and international scale.
The reborn Anacaona Orchestra was thus able to record its first album.
Alberto Pedro was able to conceive and premiere his already legendary play “Delirio habanero,” which in its first staging had the great actors Zoa Fernández, Jorge Cao and Michaelis Cue in the leading roles.
José María Vitier saw his album Si yo volviera a nacer produced and published, with children’s songs of his own sung by Pablo himself and María Felicia Pérez, which is, coincidentally, his first album in CD format.
Natalia Bolívar saw her book Los orishas en Cuba published. PM publishing house, led by Nancy Morejón, had drawn up an ambitious editorial plan, but it only managed to publish this title.
Sara González, Mario Daly, Raúl Torres, the Exaudi choir, Polito Ibáñez, José María Vitier, the Cachivache duo, Gema y Pavel, and other musicians and groups were supported by the Foundation on tours and concerts outside of Cuba. In the case of Raúl Torres, it was Pablo Milanés who conceived and materialized the possibility of him staying for three years in Brazil, as the next step in his musical career.
In the same way, thanks to Pablo’s friendly relationship with them and the work of the Foundation, the Cuban public was able to enjoy the presentations of Spaniards Joaquín Sabina, Los Ronaldos, the Brazilian Simone, and others.
Plastic artists benefitted from the support for their work: Eduardo Roca “Choco,” Manuel Mendive, Nelson Domínguez, Zaida del Río, Pedro Pablo Oliva, Roberto Favelo, Flora Fong and a then emerging Ernesto Rancaño.
The Proposiciones magazine, directed by Víctor Águila, became an important reference as an art and culture publication. Only three issues managed to see the and another produced that was unpublished; but it had content planned for the next five years.
The passion of Amado Córdova at the head of PM Radio made possible the production of programs dedicated to El Ambia, Moraima Secada, the Matamoros trio and others, as well as the recording and broadcasting of the concert Pablo canta boleros en Tropicana, a classic in the singer-songwriter’s discography.
The Pablo Milanés Foundation sponsored transcendental events such as the constitution of the Chair of Iberian-American Cultural Studies, the International Colloquium on the work of José Lezama Lima, considered the first original theoretical event. It promoted the most avant-garde Cuban design through different platforms and demonstrations and developed ideas in the field of computing aimed at creating a digital network to unite the country’s provincial libraries, one of the most daring projects of the Foundation, if the state in which Cuba was in the 1990s in the development of information technology is considered.
In 1994, supported by a broad representation of the Board of Honor, Pablo presented the Foundation in Spain in actions to make it visible and raise funds for the growing portfolio of projects presented by Cuban artists.
The truncated dream
On June 9, 1995, we woke up with the news that the Pablo Milanés Foundation had been dissolved, by decision of its board of directors. Other versions, such as the one broadcast by the National Television Newscast, stated that the decision had been made by the Ministry of Culture.
Thus culminated a stage that began almost with its own activity, marked by misunderstandings, disagreements, obstacles and blockades, attempts to validate impositions of an institutional nature beyond the protection established by law and the constitution agreement between the Ministry of Culture and Pablo Milanés.
There were also, in my opinion, internal errors in the management and administration within an excited group, essentially made up of artists, intellectuals and young people with little experience in bureaucratic management.
Important projects such as sponsoring the dance academy of dancer and choreographer Narciso Medina, the oral compilation and recording of the legendary akpwón Lázaro Ross, the creation of cultural centers in the neighborhood of Los Sitios, and others were left unfinished, sustained in the air of good wishes.
The possibility of a model of cultural work promoted by prestigious artists and outside the state frameworks received a devastating blow, freezing any possibility of individual initiative in this regard.
Painful outcome
I did not attend that final moment, since I had not worked there for nearly a year, but it did not matter: between joys and disagreements, between hopes and frustrations, between recognitions and misunderstandings, I felt that I still belonged to that place and I experienced this outcome with deep pain.
In my opinion, they should have worked to preserve the project at all costs, what was happening there was too important, not only from a cultural point of view, but also from a sociopolitical one.
Beyond internal errors, malpractice, the imposition of erroneous decisions, the occasional signs of little confidence in a group that loved what we did because we believed in Pablo and in the Foundation’s ideals as an important arm for the development of our culture, the two years of its operation demonstrated its relevance and exemplary nature as a different way of managing and promoting culture, beyond the limits of statism.
In just two years, the PM Foundation clearly demonstrated the unifying force of Pablo Milanés and the magnitude of the respect and support he has earned throughout the world as a musician, intellectual and public figure.
The existence of its founding project demonstrated the scant margin of state tolerance for a private initiative of such characteristics and singularity. The rumor mill then insisted, among other things, on racist arguments that conveyed concern about the pre-eminence of blacks, whose intellectual hierarchy was beyond any doubt in the Foundation’s work structure.
Even so, there were never limits other than talent and commitment, much less racial, to the incorporation of people into its projects and its work. What mattered was talent and industriousness, commitment to culture and being on the same wavelength of Pablo’s conceptions of this.
The Pablo Milanés Foundation reflected this thought, it was a singular, unique and transcendent institution, marked by respect for true talent, the exaltation of the values of Cuban popular culture, the encouragement of creativity, the de-ideologization of opportunities, and the supremacy of good taste.
The experience of the Pablo Milanés Foundation as a paradigm of cultural work in a complex and even adverse environment continues to arouse interest in successive generations that decide to study the case based on its own singularity. In 2019, Carla Mesa Rojas dedicated to this topic her master’s thesis in Cultural Work from the San Gerónimo University College, in Havana.
That is the imprint of Pablo Milanés and his vocation to found and create. With the mere call of his voice and his guitar, with the invincible force of his prestige, he was able to summon the best of the Cuban intelligentsia and art and bring out the best of them at a time when it was necessary to show that another way to support and promote culture was possible. Today Pablo continues summoning, because there is still much to do.
Author
Rosa Marquetti
