Maestro Leo Brouwer, the leading figure of Cuban classical guitar, one of the most iconic composers and orchestra conductors in the world, is a tireless innovator.
“I am prone to doing new or different things,” he told this publication, speaking at the Llauradó Hall in Havana’s El Vedado, moments after concluding a press conference where he revealed a wonderful program for the 2016-2017 season.
From a long list of awards, we recall that in 1987 the 22nd Assembly of the International Music Council (IMC) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) elected Brouwer as an Honorary Member, a role he shares with Isaac Stern, Alain Danielou, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Ravi Shankar, Hervert von Karajan, Joan Suteherland, Krysztof Pendericki and other world-renowned musical personalities.
In 2010 he received the Tomás Luis de Victoria Prize, the highest honor awarded to a living composer by the Fundación Autor of the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers.
Brouwer (born in Havana, 1939) has marked a turning point in the history of the guitar. Not only as a great guitar player, but also as a composer of the highest order. Throughout his life he has composed for many films (including Memorias del Subdesarollo, by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea; and Lucía, by Humberto Solas), for ballet (Edipo Rey), and dozens of chamber pieces and concerts (Concierto N°. 2 "de Lieja"; Concierto N°. 3 "Elegiaco"; Concierto N°. 4 "de Toronto"), as well as symphony pieces, and of course, pieces for the guitar.
The author of “Decamerón Negro”, “Elogio de la Danza” and “La Espiral Eterna”, noted that thanks to his efforts on the guitar, he has had the opportunity to become widely known across the world.
The artist, a friendly and talkative man, states, “The greatest satisfaction I have had is precisely that the greatest artists of the world come to Cuba, and the Cuban public enjoys something that is absolutely impossible, economically speaking.”
The maestro does not say so explicitly, but it is thanks to his ability to convene that they come. “The greatest who have come, and those who keep coming, do not do so just because they are friends, 90% of the time it’s because they know my music.”
Referring to the fact that artists can now use the internet to make themselves known, he clarifies, “I've never even made a website of my own. There is a huge amount of information about classes of mine abroad, on what they call the World Wide Web, but not in Cuba.”
A new cycle is now beginning. “We started with those chamber music festivals that began seven years ago, an idea of the musicologist Isabelle Hernández. I had withdrawn my music and I didn’t conduct it in Cuba, nor do I, so she organized the First Leo Brouwer Chamber Music Festival to essentially perform my music and it was held with full houses, an amazing thing, because my music is not beautiful, it is contemporary music with its difficulties, its unfamiliar aspects for a public only used to the great figures of the nineteenth century. Our audience, frankly, is that of Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, not even of Stravinsky or Manuel de Falla.”
According to the maestro, these festivals saw a change of direction. “They started with 80% of my music and ended up with 5%, because that’s not my interest. What I want is for the Cuban public to come to know the great music of the world, of all genres, because otherwise it is impossible. This is the brief history of the Chamber Festival, like I did before with the Havana International Guitar Festival.”
Many great artists have come to honor Brouwer at these festivals, the most recent example being the Les Voix Humaines (Human Voices) Festival last year. “Because they are my friends, they know my music, it's true. The state can not (secure them) even if it wanted to, because you have to pay Jaroussky or Cencic $40,000 per concert. Jordi Savall, who is my friend and also performed for free, the great pianists, the Labeque sisters performing Bernstein’s West Side Story, or Paco de Lucia, who performed the penultimate concert of his life here, who is going to pay them? And those I don’t mention, because these are the most famous, a group of electric guitarists were here, the best rockers in Europe came not to play rock but rather a beautiful Vivaldi and an Argentine group playing antique indigenous instruments which was mind blowing.”
The maestro acknowledges, “It is true that the big names are a crowd-puller, and for me the main thing is to be able to bring them here, for my love of the audiences that have gone to these concerts.”
The extensive program presented for this year also includes major figures. “Our festivals always give us ideas for new things, which become necessary. For me it’s amazing. We have been working for a long time, because they have to adjust their dates, they are big stars who are contracted all year round and they have to slip away.”
Leo Brouwer and Isabella Hernández, director general of the Office named after the maestro, outlined two seasons for this year, which they have called Conciertos Solidarios (Solidarity Concerts), “which will take place in a new venue, la Parroquia de El Vedado church, a great place we used in 2015 for the Les Voix Humaines Festival,” as well as a number of guest artists.
Of these extraordinary figures, the first will perform on April 23 at the Teatro Martí, “none other than Pilar Jurado, conductor and director of the El mago de Oz group, a great voice and a tremendous composer, together with Cuban countertenor Frank Ledesma.”
The concert is titled “Cervantes vs Shakespeare 400 años después…” (Shakespeare vs. Cervantes 400 years later) with pieces by John Dowland, Thomas Campion, Benjamin Britten, Tomas Marco, Pilar Jurado, among others. “We commemorate four centuries since the death of these two giants of universal literature, linked without having met each other, who died in April, with the same characteristics, both adventurers.”
Also in April, this time on the 30th and in the García Lorca Hall of the Alicia Alonso Grand Theater of Havana, “We will host “Green, concierto” by French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, perhaps the most famous in the world, a virtuous, clear voice, he plans to do new things, French songs with texts by Paul Verlaine and music by Fauré, Debussy, Hahn, Poldowski, Bordes and Szulc.”
On June 9, in the Theatre of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Cuban Art Building, the “Concierto Tocando Portugal” will be performed by the Rumus Ensemble (violin, clarinet and piano) with works by Portuguese composers together with audiovisual presentations.
In the Basílica Menor de San Francisco, on July 16, the “Concert of North American composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries” will take place with the Cole-Robertson Trio (piano, violin and cello) of the Lynn University of Florida, performing works by George Rochberg, Errol Garner, Robert Starer, John Cage, George Gershwin, Samuel Barber and John Corigliano.
Saturday, June 23, will see the special concert “Tribute to Toru Takemitsu 20 years after his death”, in the Theatre of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Cuban Art Building, who Brouwer described as “A genius of the 20th century, a great friend, I met him in Japan and he said he had studied my music. I dedicated a piece to him, Hika por Takemitsu.”
Isabelle Hernández, artistic director of the event, highlighted the Second Countertenors Festival (September 30 - October 9) “for which 11 countries have already confirmed: Spain, Austria, Portugal, Brazil, France, Italy, the United States, Poland, Canada, Switzerland and Cuba.”
The Festival will see 15 concerts “with world and national premieres from Renaissance music to the 21st century and tributes to Mozart on the 260th anniversary of his birth and for the 140th of Manuel de Falla, during which an orchestral version of his Seven Spanish Folksongs will be performed, with guests the likes of Max Emanuel Cencic (Austria), Daniel Taylor (Canada), Artur Stefanowicz (Poland), Riccardo Strano (Italy), the Cuarteto de Cuerdas Lusitania (Portugal), Susana García de Salazar (Spain) and Frank Ledesma of Cuba, the Chamber Orchestra of Havana, Aldo López-Gavilán, Karla Martínez and Niurka González.
The “Conciertos Solidarios” begin on February 27 with Niurka González, “one of the most extraordinary of the many flutists I've heard” with María del Henar, on harpsichord; Anabel Gil and Martha Cristina Valdivia on flute, and Alejandro Martínez, on the cello, who will perform Alemania Barroca, a collection of works by Bach, Handel, and Telemann and Quantz.
Saturday, March 26, will see a concert entitled “Canciones Remotas”, by the Havana Soloists Ensemble, conducted by Iván Valiente with music by Brouwer and Yalil Guerra. The maestro added, “For May we have the Clasicismo Vienés concert, with the Quinteto Ventus Habana and Moisés Santiesteban, on the organ, with music by Mozart, Haydn and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and in June (Saturday 25) the Amadeo Roldan String Quartet will perform works by Villa-Lobos and Gershwin, among others.”
Brouwer already has a proposal for 2017. “A series of concerts that will highlight the continued universality of Beethoven 190 years after his death; the contributions of the American John Adams on his 70th birthday and the Brazilians Heitor Villa-Lobos on the 130th anniversary of his birth and Egberto Gismonti on his 70th birthday.”
In February, the Conciertos Solidarios will return, April will see the Festival de Primavera (Spring Festival), the Countertenors of the World Festival will take place in September and the A Capella Festival of Havana will be held in November.
Maestro Leo Brouwer is a tireless innovator. The program for the 2016-2017 season is, as if it were necessary, yet more proof of this.
