Providing a sampling of the music and performances featured during the Artes de Cuba festival, the Kennedy Center was host to an exuberant variety of music by Cuban artists. The performances ranged from a jazz quintet offering an a cappella number accompanied just bye hands clapping,to songs from an 87-year-old chanteuse Omara Portuondo who continued to perform an enthusiastic goodbye for the audience after the curtain had come down. Many of the artists performing at the Center brought their classical training to improvisatory jazz. Aldo López-Gavilán and Jorge Luis Pacheco previewed their two-piano evening with a Cuban medley, while the Orquesta Miguel Faílde, an ensemble led by a flutist and devoted to the unique Cuban genre known as danzón.
The flute player, who is the grandson of the genre’s official originator who gave his name to the group, played his way through the audience as the musicians took to the stage. Alí Arango played a portion of a guitar sonata by the famous composer Leo Brouwer, and Aymée Nuviola, salsa singer and actress, encouraged audience participation during her dancing and singing of “Bemba Colora.” Later, she accompanied Portuondo on the piano and with vocals in “Tres Palabras.” Portuondo, with the accompaniment of pianist Roldany Hernández, sang “Veinte Años” and “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás,” also encouraged participation from audience members, many of whom were well acquainted with these songs. Fans of classical music recognize the Havana Lyceum Orchestra for their recording in 2017 with Simone Dinnerstein, “Mozart in Havana.” A top Cuban conservatory provided an orchestra made of students and faculty members and displayed a variety of classical and vernacular arrangements on their tour of the United States in 2017 with conductor José Antonio Méndez Padrón. Some of the orchestra’s members had to practice using instruments strung with telephone wire as they lacked appropriate resources. Their performance of “Samba Son,” which was written by their principal second violinist Jenny Peña Campo, represented the more vernacular side of their selections and provided syncopation, pizzicato, and numerous solos. This number was enthusiastically received by the audience and brought the house down.
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