International Jazz Plaza Festival 2022: more than 25 concerts

Between January 18 and 23, 2022, the International Jazz Plaza Festival will return to Havana, to vibrate with the most universal of musical genres and with the participation of renowned instrumentalists and interpreters from Cuba and eight other nations.

The event in its 37th edition will take place in the hybrid mode with more than 25 concerts and other face-to-face actions, and will also be broadcast by the Clave Channel of national television, the Streaming Cuba network, and the digital platforms of institutions such as Centro Nacional de la Música Popular [National Center of Popular Music] and Ministerio de Cultura [Ministry of Culture], for a greater scope of the renowned artistic event.

All of the above was announced at a press conference held at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba by Víctor Rodríguez, president of the International Jazz Plaza Festival, Roberto Fonseca, its artistic director, maestro Bobby Carcassés, founder of the event, and Indira Fajardo, President of the Instituto Cubano de la Música [Cuban Institute of Music] (ICM).

Víctor Rodríguez, listed the different institutions that will serve as spaces for the Jazz Plaza, which are the Avellaneda and Covarrubias rooms of Teatro Nacional and Teatro América, and the Tito Junco room of Teatro Bertolt Brecht, in which rigorous biosafety protocols will be completed and will maintain a limited occupation, as a prevention against the transmission of COVID-19.

Precisely, it was reported at the meeting that for this reason the festival will not take place in Santiago de Cuba, as in previous editions and as it had been announced, taking into account the increase in infections with SARS-CoV-2 that is being reported daily on the island.

The president of the ICM explained that they have maintained the celebration of the event due to the high demand for it by musicians from the patio and foreigners, and the general public.

Cuban musicians of high artistic hierarchy and popularity such as Bobby Carcassés himself, Cuban showman, Roberto Fonseca, Alain Pérez, Emilio Vega, Rolando Luna, Ernán López-Nussa, Nachito Herrera, Rodrigo García, Dayramir González and other magnificent interpreters, will be the protagonists of the face-to-face concerts.

The international presence is guaranteed with the assistance of renowned musicians of the genre from Spain, the United States, Argentina, Belgium, the Republic of the Congo, France, Finland and the Netherlands.

Among these stand out the Congolese composer, pianist and guitarist, established in France, Ray Lema; the multi-award winning Argentine bassist Javier Malosetti, who was a member of Luis Alberto Spinetta‘s band for 8 years, with a successful solo career, and his countryman Dominic Miller, guitarist of the famous British musician Sting since 1991 and also a collaborator of Phil Collins and Bryan Adams.

A segment of great importance within the Festival is the Coloquio Internacional de Jazz Leonardo Acosta in memoriam [Leonardo Acosta in memoriam International Jazz Colloquium], which, as in previous editions, will be the place for thinking about jazz, and which will also host tributes to leading figures, both musicians and scholars of the genre.

The Colloquium will meet daily in the mornings at the La Plaza Cultural Center on 31 and 2, and at the same time it will be transmitted virtually by the channels that will transmit the actions of the Jazz Plaza Festival program, and another moment of debate and reflection about the rich genre will be the Primera Línea [First Line] event, where professionals from the music industry will take part.

This year the International Jazz Plaza Festival is dedicated to the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna [Cuban Modern Music Orchestra] on the 55th anniversary of its foundation; the centenary of the birth of the unforgettable composer César Portillo de la Luz and the 95 years of the first Cuban piano woman, Numidia Vaillant.

*Source: Diario de Cuba (translated from Spanish)