{"id":260788,"date":"2022-11-23T13:31:31","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T18:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=260788"},"modified":"2022-11-23T13:31:31","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T18:31:31","slug":"pablo-milanes-vocation-to-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/culture\/pablo-milanes-vocation-to-found\/","title":{"rendered":"Pablo Milan\u00e9s: vocation to found"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-nine years ago, in mid 1993 in the middle of the Special Period, Pablo Milan\u00e9s managed to create and lead the first independent, self-financing and non-ideological cultural organization in Cuba.<\/p>\n

The Pablo Milan\u00e9s Foundation was also the first \u2014and so far the only\u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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 Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n Foundation and the Alejo Carpentier Foundation. That of Pablo Milan\u00e9s would be different, since it would dispense with state financing, although it could not do so with a certain degree of tutelage.<\/p>\n

A dream come true<\/h3>\n

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 \u2014 something unprecedented and controversial in the country up to now \u2014 destined to support and promote young emerging artists and their projects not only in music, but also in art in its broadest sense.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> to what he told Spanish journalist Mauricio Vicent.<\/p>\n

Pablo\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

When on Wednesday, June 23, 1993, Pablo Milan\u00e9s and Armando Hart \u2014 then Minister of Culture \u2014 signed the entity\u2019s constitutive agreement, a question loomed over everyone\u2019s heads: to what extent would the luminous and transcendental idea of \u200b\u200bthe singer-songwriter manage to remain and advance in a political and work space in which the State exercised the strictest control. The d\u00e9tente 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.<\/p>\n

The initial capital to create the Pablo Milan\u00e9s 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\u2019s account: concert tours with his group, record editions and copyrights.<\/p>\n

As explained by an anonymous collaborator interviewed in 1993 by the Spanish newspaper El Pa\u00eds<\/em>, \u201cfor his tours, records and copyrights, Pablo annually gave the Ministry of Culture figures of more than six zeros,\u201d 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\u2019s funds.<\/p>\n

Regarding the projects that he would support, Pablo was emphatic the day the existence of the cherished dream was made official<\/a>: \u201cThe foundation has no ideological purpose. What matters to us is quality and not political militancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s sphere of influence was already immense.<\/p>\n

Prestige and commitment<\/h3>\n

In addition to the financial funds provided, the PM Foundation could count on other capital: Pablo\u2019s international prestige, his convening power and his magic to spread enthusiasm and attract efficient support.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, Leo Brouwer, Alicia Alonso, Mario Benedetti, Manuel V\u00e1zquez Montalb\u00e1n, Chucho Vald\u00e9s, Alfredo Guevara, Oswaldo Guayasam\u00edn, Tom\u00e1s Guti\u00e9rrez Alea, Eliseo Diego, Joaqu\u00edn Sabina, Eduardo Galeano, Rafael Alberti, Pedro Almod\u00f3var, Teddy Bautista, Luis Eduardo Aute, Antonio Gades, Charo L\u00f3pez, Paco Rabal, Joan Manuel Serrat, Miriam Makeba, Harry Belafonte, Chico Buarque, Ernesto Cardenal, Sergio Ram\u00edrez, Rigoberta Mench\u00fa, Juan Echanove…. Without a doubt, the founding agreement created by Pablo Milan\u00e9s filled everyone with hope and enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

A non-transferable privilege<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Through Pablo I got to know the beautiful voice of Mar\u00eda Teresa Vera, the painful inspiration at times, exultant others, of Sindo Garay and Manuel Corona; the virtuoso strings of El Albino and Cot\u00e1n, the montuna chronicle and the unparalleled cadence of Compay Segundo.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The brothers Omar and Orlando Hechavarr\u00eda, 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 Milan\u00e9s was decisive in my professional path and my life experience. A non-transferable privilege.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A place of pilgrimage and creation<\/h3>\n

Pablo\u2019s 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 Morej\u00f3n, journalist and writer V\u00edctor \u00c1guila, journalist and editor Amado C\u00f3rdova; friends from the early days of the New Song Movement like the promoters Ciro Benemelis, Gil Lino Su\u00e1rez, Sareska Escalona, \u200b\u200bMariana Rivas, and others \u2014 I include myself \u2014 like Noel \u00c1lvarez, Daysi D\u00edaz, Hilda Barrio, Rebeca Gonz\u00e1lez, Odette Pantoja, who vibrated with Pablo\u2019s work and ideas, embodied in the Foundation, and we did our best for them.<\/p>\n

It was impossible for it not to be so: Pablo\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

During the twenty-four months of its existence, the mansion that housed the Pablo Milan\u00e9s 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\u2019s consideration and win his backing and material support.<\/p>\n

Much was done at that time and many projects were carried out with the financial and practical support of Pablo Milan\u00e9s and his Foundation. Here are just a few that I remember:<\/p>\n

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 Mar\u00eda Felicia P\u00e9rez and Alina Orraca, respectively, and the Yoruba Andabo group, which had been established as a professional group in 1981 directed by Pancho Quinto.<\/p>\n

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 Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez, Frank Delgado or Ra\u00fal 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 Milan\u00e9s, who promoted their career on a national and international scale.<\/p>\n

The reborn Anacaona Orchestra was thus able to record its first album.<\/p>\n

Alberto Pedro was able to conceive and premiere his already legendary play \u201cDelirio habanero,\u201d which in its first staging had the great actors Zoa Fern\u00e1ndez, Jorge Cao and Michaelis Cue in the leading roles.<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Vitier saw his album Si yo volviera a nacer<\/em> produced and published, with children\u2019s songs of his own sung by Pablo himself and Mar\u00eda Felicia P\u00e9rez, which is, coincidentally, his first album in CD format.<\/p>\n

Natalia Bol\u00edvar saw her book Los orishas en Cuba<\/em> published. PM publishing house, led by Nancy Morej\u00f3n, had drawn up an ambitious editorial plan, but it only managed to publish this title.<\/p>\n

Sara Gonz\u00e1lez, Mario Daly, Ra\u00fal Torres, the Exaudi choir, Polito Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez, Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda 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 Ra\u00fal Torres, it was Pablo Milan\u00e9s who conceived and materialized the possibility of him staying for three years in Brazil, as the next step in his musical career.<\/p>\n

In the same way, thanks to Pablo\u2019s friendly relationship with them and the work of the Foundation, the Cuban public was able to enjoy the presentations of Spaniards Joaqu\u00edn Sabina, Los Ronaldos, the Brazilian Simone, and others.<\/p>\n

Plastic artists benefitted from the support for their work: Eduardo Roca \u201cChoco,\u201d Manuel Mendive, Nelson Dom\u00ednguez, Zaida del R\u00edo, Pedro Pablo Oliva, Roberto Favelo, Flora Fong and a then emerging Ernesto Ranca\u00f1o.<\/p>\n

The Proposiciones<\/em> magazine, directed by V\u00edctor \u00c1guila, 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.<\/p>\n

The passion of Amado C\u00f3rdova 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<\/em>, a classic in the singer-songwriter\u2019s discography.<\/p>\n

The Pablo Milan\u00e9s Foundation sponsored transcendental events such as the constitution of the Chair of Iberian-American Cultural Studies, the International Colloquium on the work of Jos\u00e9 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n