The Salvadoran singer Álvaro Torres said on Friday that in 2014 he will tour Cuba. Torres broke the news during the first of three concerts featuring these days in Havana Lázaro Peña theater, opportunity for which , he confessed , he waited more than 20 years .
Accompanied mostly by young Cuban musicians, including the first 28 stands of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba, led by the master Enrique Pérez Mesa, the artist sang a selection of several of his most popular songs included in his extensive discography.
Several generations of Cubans chanted choruses of songs like Sencilla y bella, Chiquita mía, Hazme olvidarla, Si estuvieras conmigo, and Patria querida, which he sang along with his son Astor Torres and dedicated to the Cuban people .
I am happy and nervous at the same time, the singer based in the United States confessed, you are a wonderful audience and I hope that moments like this happen again.
About his visit to Cuba, the singer had said during a press conference days ago at the Hotel Melia Cohiba, “I have come not to pay a debt, but to wholeheartedly thank this favor, that good so big that you have given me through years of work supporting and loving my music and my lyrics and endorsing my tunes, so for me this is something unique, wonderful and I can only thank you by singing.”
Author of a dozen albums, Torres had visited Cuba before, but in a private capacity. This is the first time singing for the Cubans, whom he considers the most romantic public he has known.
“I’ve been a few times to this country with the aim of establishing whether the myth is true that I was so great in Cuba. My songs are so loved that I could not believe it when I first came I did as any tourist and found out I am humbly of every Cuban history through my music. Later part of my team and I came and started managing the possibility of coming to sing, now possible thanks to my manager , Mr. José Luis Castro , Cuban entrepreneur who has given me the opportunity to reach this achievement . “
About why romantic music and ways of composing, the Central American artist said at the time, he only writes love songs but not only for couples, in his lyrics also airs his love for his hometown Salvador, which he left was nearly four decades ago (currently resides in Miami, United States).
I have tried, he said, to be a useful romantic composer and essentially for those people who feel love in all its ways, that we should share. “My speech is the lyrics of my songs, my love stories, and I cannot change because it already exists in the hearts of the people, in this case the soundtrack for millions of Cubans, both those who live here, as those living elsewhere in the world.”
All this inspires him to compose, always looking for new ways to reach his fans without geographical differences. ” I recorded salsa, merengue, rumba, and more recently a fusion of vallenato, in short, but a little more urban, with the intention to approach the new generations, is one step that must be taken but I’ll take mine : romantic music . “
About Cuban music and how it has influenced his career the Salvadoran singer said that in his country, as a child, listening to a lot of Cuban music “sounded at that time, for example, The earrings that are missing from the moon and other hits “.
Singers like Vicentico Valdés, Celia Cruz , whom he met and considered an icon of the music world , and Benny Moré were a big influence , he said, but also and more modern great crooners like Francisco Céspedes , which has been a great contribution to romantic music, and the special case of Juana Bacallao , a living legend who he had shared stage with
On his immediate professional projects he announced during the conference that his latest album, Another Life, is to get out and two tracks are already being promoted, he also expects to record an album with a Cuban musician, but has not yet thought of nobody specific.
Torres stay in Havana is not only for the concert at the Lázaro Peña, he has among its plans to visit the National Art School, the headquarters of the Society of Children’s Theatre The Beehive and the gathering of tres player Pancho Amat in his the provisional headquarters of the National Music Museum.
Alvaro Torres again will sing in the capital theater, today and tomorrow at nine in the evening.
