2024-04-30 22:59:11
Photos: Jorge Luis Borges
Text: Karla Castillo
2021 will begin in just a few days and January brings the certainty that, despite the coronavirus, Havana will be about jazz for a while.
The 36th edition of the Jazz Plaza International Festival will arrive on January 19, and until January 24, several representatives of the genre in the country will parade through the stages.
It is a special occasion, conditioned, of course, by the pandemic and the effects it has had on events worldwide, the Jazz Plaza, therefore, will have as venues the two halls of the National Theater (Avellaneda and Covarrubias) and the Plaza Culture House.
As the organizers have shared, at the National Theater the in-person concerts will be with the established audience capacity, thus ensuring compliance with hygienic and sanitary measures.
Among the artists who will be presented, they mentioned the maestro Bobby Carcassés; the group Síntesis, with a fusion presentation of Jazz songs with other trends, especially Afro-Cuban; Rolando Luna; Maraca; Ruy López Nussa; and Roberto Fonseca; as well as the tribute concerts dedicated to Pello El Afrocán, Rubén González and Rumba will continue.
For this 26th edition, online concerts that will take place in Spain, Haiti and the United States will be screened at the Plaza Culture House, which will alternate with material recorded in previous editions by Cuban jazz musicians. In addition, the exhibition of the plastic work of maestro Bobby Carcassés, ending with a Jam Session.
There will also be space in this edition for the XVI International Jazz Colloquium, which will be dedicated to Armando Romeu (110 years since his birth), the centenary of Frank Emilio Flynn, Chico O’Farrill, Cándido Camero, the centenary of the death of Miguel Failde, and Chucho Valdés’ 80th birthday.
Within the theoretical space there will be the presentation of jazz records produced in Cuba in 2020, a musical production workshop by José Manuel García, as well as a musical recording of jazz records by Orestes Águila, and master classes in person and online.
It has been a year in which the artistic world has been forced to choose variants to share the works with the public, thus, this, which is one of the most relevant music events in Cuba, has had to adapt to the context.
No information has yet been revealed about whether the festival will be extended to Santiago de Cuba, a province that has hosted the event on other occasions, nor has there been any talk about possible international guests, but it can be deduced that it is unlikely that any will arrive this year. internationally renowned figure, due to the epidemic caused by Covid-19.