Cuban music echoes from Havana to Santa Clara

By Molly Gore

The colorful sounds of Cuban music, highlighting a mixture of genres, will echo through Santa Clara all this week.

Offering performances every day until Wednesday, Feb. 13, the music department will introduce the World Music Festival this week as part of an annual rotation of piano, new music and song festivals.

The festival, titled Festival de Música Cubana, began yesterday with a performance by composer, teacher and folklorist Bobi Cespedes of Cuba.

The festival has been organized by professor Bob Bozina, a key figure in the Cuban studies program. In planning the events, Bozina aims to bring authentic Cuban music to the popular commercialized versions widely ingrained in the American mindset.

"What is important to consider is that if you took a cross-section of many people in the United States and asked them what Cuban music was, they would think of something stereotypical like Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez," said Bozina.

In a truly authentic tribute, events throughout the week will feature music performed and written by Cuban-born performers selecting from the Cuban repertoire such genres as rhumba, son, chamber music, classical, charanga and cha cha cha.

According to Bozina, it will be the first time in at least 50 years, and perhaps ever, when all of the varieties of Cuban music from classical to folkloric will be performed in the same venue. The piano music of Alejandro Garcia Caturla, which will be performed by Alma Batista, will be a United States premiere.

"It is a big bite to claim U.S. premieres of these works, and I suppose I will take it on the chin, several times, if proven wrong," Bozina wrote in an e-mail. "In any event, at minimum, we are bringing attention to Cuban classical composers who have been off the radar screen."

It is no wonder Cuban music has been Americanized in the absence of easy access to the real thing, but how will an American palate thirsty for finger-snapping, sing-along melody receive the sound?

"Afro-Cuban music is just exhilarating and energetic with incredible rhythm. It's the stuff that makes me feel like getting up and dancing around," said professor Nancy Wait-Kromm of the music department.

Part of what makes the Cuban repertoire of music so unique is the variety of cultural saturation that creates the sound.

"Cuba is an independent identity, and the Cuban population is largely in the culturation process that involves Europeans, Africans and the French. Because of the political situation between countries, we have not been able to hear or be made much aware of that," said Bozina.

The normally inaccessible nature of the music may create a draw for students, faculty and the public, as well. In lieu of the music like that of the Pink Flamingos, and other commercially Cuban groups, Bozina has chosen music that represents the sounds heard in Cuban cafés, streets and concert halls from everywhere between Havana and Baracoa.

"It creates a real picture of a country (students) may never be able to visit. It's not very easy to get to Cuba," said Wait-Kromm.

To make performances more accessible for students, the Center for Performing Arts will subsidize a handful of performances to offer admission for free. Featured free events include the Afro-Cuban percussion workshop tonight, a discussion surrounding cultural exchanges with Cuba on Feb. 11, a film by Bozina depicting the music and dance of Cuba that will be shown on Feb. 13, and a Mass in the Mission Church celebrating the music of composer and priest Esteban Salas.

As the central event of the week, the festival will feature a semiformal evening at the de Saisset Museum that offers light Cuban appetizers and the chance to learn the danzón, a Cuban dance popular in the early 20th century. Consistent with Cuban tradition, women will be provided with fans.

Throughout the week, many of the Cuban compositions and their performers will be making their American debut.

Friday night will offer the notable premiere of Caturla's concert repertoire performed by Puerto Rican pianist Batista during "Cuba: A Sonic Landscape."

The Santa Clara concert choir and music faculty will perform alongside Cuban musicians during the mass of Cuban liturgical music on Sunday night, as well as at "A Sonic Landscape," with student group Son Santa Clara. Throughout this week, even those well-acquainted with the music of Cuba will find some elements of the festival delightfully unexpected and refreshingly original.

"I can tell you that with all things Cuban, there are always surprises," said Bozina.

Contact Molly Gore at (408) 551-1918 or mgore@scu.edu.