The maestro Leo Brouwer once again achieved the perfect marriage of intelligent music in much more than just a slogan. Now, for the fifth time, Havana makes space for the Chamber Music Festival that bears his name. This September 28th Havana started this party of tunes. The maestro’s festival, which runs until October 13, is a space where they play Classical, Contemporary and Old Music along Jazz, Flamenco, Pop, Fusion, Electronics, Children’s songs and Humor, but you always remember: intelligently.
In a kind of master class where musicians and audience were trainees of Brouwer this festival started, without ruling out the laughter by comedian Osvaldo Doimeadiós. Embodying the role of teacher, nothing away from his reality, Brouwer revealed to those present how much they can learn in terms of music and how much Cuban and humorous this can be. Doimeadiós, meanwhile, displayed a histrionics to which we Cubans are accustomed, but this time he also impressed at the piano.
Two main lines came together in a show that put together, leaving no visible stitching, humor and music. The Concierto para dedo y orquesta, conducted by Maestro Leo, delighted everyone during two and half hours in the Avellaneda Hall of the National Theater of Cuba. The show is joined on the musical side by Vocal Sampling, the Chamber Orchestra of Havana and Jorge Luis Pacheco at the piano, while along Doimeadiós guest actors from Humor Promotion Center were in charge of making the audience laugh.
Leo Brouwer has shown how you can make good art without opulence, and proof of this is not only his work, large and exquisite, but the five editions of this musical feast. The Festival has attracted large crowds in each of its activities, for being new and smart, and this year is no exception. Santiago de Cuba had the scoop on September 24 and for three days, then Pinar del Rio hosted the event for a day, and now Havana is full of chords for a fortnight. But music is not only invited, also photography, audiovisual, painting and theoretical talks expand the range of proposals.
Havana already started writing the notes on this score. The first was full of musicianship and good humor, a perfect blend to educate the taste, to suit the Festival days to come. New spaces will be fully ready for art, music craft and skill of the great Brouwer. A rite of initiation into the labyrinths of sound, an examination at the purest national style, pupils all of us-a smart lesson where we learned that laugh also rewards.
A perfect pairing of authors and works is also this event, a comprehensive tour on sound trends, where the new blends with the old in a kind of renewal. A program that leaves no space to emptiness, because each performance is a must experience for the tuned Cuban ear.
Many are the proposals and I am sure one of the most anticipated is the live concert by the great Paco de Lucia. After more than 25 years the Spanish guitarist returns to the Island to cram the Karl Marx Theater on Wednesday. Since long before the rumor was circulating the streets of Havana and today the certainty makes even harder to get the tickets. To have this concert in the program certainly will distinguish this event, a luxury time to enjoy another great musician. These days, Brouwer raises his hand in symbolic gesture for the five years of smart music; in the public, the delight and satisfaction that is not a lie, Paco de Lucia is in Havana!
* OnCuba will bring details of the Paco de Lucia concert and will continue to cover the Fifth Leo Brouwer Festival of Chamber Music.
