Music of Cuba

The music of Cuba, including its instruments, performance, and dance, comprises a large set of unique traditions influenced mostly by west African and European (especially Spanish) music. Due to the syncretic nature of most of its genres, Cuban music is often considered one of the richest and most influential regional music in the world. For instance, the son cubano merges an adapted Spanish guitar (tres), melody, harmony, and lyrical traditions with Afro-Cuban percussion and rhythms. Almost nothing remains of the original native traditions, since the native population was exterminated in the 16th century.

Since the 19th century, Cuban music has been hugely popular and influential throughout the world. It has been perhaps the most popular form of regional music since the introduction of recording technology. Cuban music has contributed to the development of a wide variety of genres and musical styles around the globe, most notably in Latin America, the Caribbean, West Africa, and Europe. Examples include rhumba, Afro-Cuban jazz, salsa, soukous, many West African re-adaptations of Afro-Cuban music ( Orchestra Baobab, Africando), Spanish fusion genres (notably with flamenco), and a wide variety of genres in Latin America.

Overview

Large numbers of enslaved Africans and European, mostly Spanish, immigrants came to Cuba and brought their own forms of music to the island. European dances and folk musics included zapateo, fandango, paso doble and retambico. Later, northern European forms like minuet, gavotte, mazurka, contradanza, and the waltz appeared among urban whites. There was also an immigration of Chinese indentured laborers later in the 19th century.

Fernando Ortiz, the first great Cuban folklorist, described Cuba's musical innovations as arising from the interplay ('transculturation') between enslaved Africans settled on large sugar plantations and Spaniards from different regions such as Andalusia and Canary Islands. The enslaved Africans and their descendants made many percussion instruments and preserved rhythms they had known in their homeland. The most important instruments were the drums, of which, there were originally about fifty different types; today only the bongos, congas and batá drums are regularly seen (the timbales are descended from kettle drums in Spanish military bands). Also important are the claves, two short hardwood batons, and the cajón, a wooden box, originally made from crates. Claves are still used often, and wooden boxes (''cajones'') were widely used during periods when the drum was banned. In addition, there are other percussion instruments in use for African-origin religious ceremonies. Chinese immigrants contributed the '' corneta china'' (Chinese cornet), a Chinese reed instrument still played in the comparsas, or carnival groups, of Santiago de Cuba.

The great instrumental contribution of the Spanish was their guitar, but even more important was the tradition of European musical notation and techniques of musical composition. Hernando de la Parra's archives give some of our earliest available information on Cuban music. He reported instruments including the clarinet, violin and vihuela. There were few professional musicians at the time, and fewer still of their songs survive. One of the earliest is ''Ma Teodora'', supposed to be related to a freed slave, Teodora Ginés of Santiago de Cuba, who was famous for her compositions. The piece is said to be similar to 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century Spanish popular songs and dances.

Cuban music has its principal roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time has been influenced by diverse genres from different countries. Important among these are France (and its colonies in the Americas), and the United States.

Cuban music has been immensely influential in other countries. It contributed not only to the development of jazz and salsa, but also to the Argentine tango, Ghanaian high-life, West African Afrobeat, Dominican Bachata and Merengue, Colombian Cumbia and Spanish Nuevo flamenco and to the Arabo-Cuban music ( Hanine Y Son Cubano) developed by Michel Elefteriades in the 1990s.

The African beliefs and practices certainly influenced Cuba's music. Polyrhythmic percussion is an inherent part of African music, as the melody is part of European music. Also, in African tradition, percussion is always joined to song and dance, and a particular social setting.Ortiz, Fernando 1950. ''La Afrocania de la musica folklorica de Cuba''. La Habana revised ed 1965. The result of the meeting of European and African cultures is that most Cuban popular music is creolized. This creolization of Cuban life has been happening for a long time, and by the 20th century, elements of African belief, music, and dance were well integrated into popular and folk forms.

Classical music

18th and 19th centuries

Among internationally heralded composers of the "serious" genre can be counted the Baroque composer Esteban Salas y Castro (1725–1803), who spent much of his life teaching and writing music for the Church. He was followed in the Cathedral of Santiago de Cuba by the priest Juan París (1759–1845). París was an exceptionally industrious man and an important composer. He encouraged continuous and diverse musical events.^p181 Aside from rural music and Afro-Cuban folk music, the most popular kind of urban Creole dance music in the 19th century was the contradanza, which commenced as a local form of the English country dance and the derivative French contredanse and Spanish contradanza. While many contradanzas were written for dance, from the mid-century several were written as light-classical parlor pieces for piano. The first distinguished composer in this style was Manuel Saumell (1818–1870), who is sometimes accordingly hailed as the father of Cuban creole musical development. According to Helio Orovio, "After Saumell's visionary work, all that was left to do was to develop his innovations, all of which profoundly influenced the history of Cuban nationalist musical movements."

In the hands of his successor, Ignacio Cervantes Kavanagh, the piano idiom related to the contradanza achieved even greater sophistication. Cervantes was called by Aaron Copland a "Cuban Chopin" because of his Chopinesque piano compositions. Cervantes' reputation today rests almost solely upon his famous forty-one ''Danzas Cubanas'', which Carpentier said, "occupy the place that the ''Norwegian Dances'' of Grieg or the ''Slavic Dances'' of Dvořák occupy in the music of their respective countries". Cervantes' never-finished opera, ''Maledetto'', is forgotten.Carpentier, Alejo 2001 945 ''Music in Cuba''. Minneapolis MN.

In the 1840s, the habanera emerged as a languid vocal song using the contradanza rhythm. (Non-Cubans sometimes called Cuban contradanzas "habaneras.") The habanera went on to become popular in Spain and elsewhere. The Cuban contradanza/danza was also an important influence on the Puerto Rican danza, which went on to enjoy its own dynamic and distinctive career lasting through the 1930s. In Cuba, in the 1880s the contradanza/danza gave birth to the danzón, which effectively superseded it in popularity.

Laureano Fuentes (1825–1898) came from a family of musicians and wrote the first opera to be composed on the island, ''La Hija de Jefté'' (Jefte's daughter). This was later lengthened and staged under the title ''Seila''. His numerous works spanned all genres. Gaspar Villate (1851–1891) produced abundant and wide-ranging work, all centered on opera.^p239 José White (1836–1918), a mulatto of a Spanish father and an Afrocuban mother, was a composer and a violinist of international merit. He learned to play sixteen instruments, and lived, variously, in Cuba, Latin America, and Paris. His most famous work is ''La Bella Cubana'', a habanera.

During the middle years of the 19th century, a young American musician Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869) came to Cuba. Gottschalk's father was a Jewish businessman from London, and his mother a white creole of French Catholic background. Gottschalk was brought up mostly by his black grandmother and nurse Sally, both from Saint-Domingue. He was a piano prodigy who had listened to the music and seen the dancing in Congo Square, New Orleans from childhood. His period in Cuba lasted from 1853 to 1862, with visits to Puerto Rico and Martinique squeezed in. He composed many creolized pieces, such as the habanera '' Bamboula, Op. 2'' (Danse de negres) (1845), the title referring to a bass Afro-Caribbean drum; ''El cocoye'' (1853), a version of a rhythmic melody already present in Cuba; the contradanza ''Ojos criollos (Danse cubaine)'' (1859) and a version of ''María de la O'', which refers to a Cuban mulatto singer. These numbers made use of typical Cuban rhythmic patterns. At one of his farewell concerts he played his ''Adiós a Cuba'' to huge applause and shouts of 'bravo!' Unfortunately, his score for the work has not survived. In February 1860 Gottschalk produced a huge work, ''La nuit des tropiques'', in Havana. The work used about 250 musicians and a choir of 200 singers plus a tumba francesa group from Santiago de Cuba. He produced another huge concert the following year, with new material. These shows probably dwarfed anything seen in the island before or since, and no doubt were unforgettable for those who attended.Sublette, Ned 2004. ''Cuba and its music: from the first drums to the mambo''. Chicago.^p147

20th-century classical and art music

Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th a number of composers excel within the Cuban music panorama. They cultivated genres such as the popular song and the concert lied, dance music, the zarzuela and the vernacular theatre, as well as symphonic music. Noteworthy are Hubert de Blanck (1856-1932), José Mauri (1856-1937), Manuel Mauri (1857-1939), José Marín Varona, Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes (1874-1944), Jorge Anckermann (1877-1941), Luis Casas Romero (1882-1950), Mario Valdés Costa (1898-1930), and others.

The work of José Marín Varona links the Cuban musical activity from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. In 1896, the composer included in his zarzuela "El Brujo" the first Cuban guajira which has been historically documented.

About this piece, composer Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes said: "The honest critique of a not very far day will bestow the author of the immortal guajira of "El Brujo" the honor to which he is undoubtedly entitled at any time".

Gonzalo Roig (1890–1970) was a major force in the first half of the century. A composer and orchestral director, he qualified in piano, violin and composition theory. In 1922 he was one of the founders of the National Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted. In 1927 he was appointed Director of the Havana School of Music. As a composer he specialized in the zarzuela, a musical theatre form, very popular up to World War II. In 1931 he co-founded a ''bufo'' company (comic theatre) at the '' Teatro Martí'' in Havana. He was the composer of the most well-known Cuban zarzuela, '' Cecilia Valdés'', based on the famous 19th-century novel about a Cuban mulata. It was premiered in 1932. He founded various organizations and wrote frequently on musical topics.

One of the greatest Cuban pianist/composers of the 20th century was Ernesto Lecuona (1895–1963). Lecuona composed over six hundred pieces, mostly in the Cuban vein, and was a pianist of exceptional quality. He was a prolific composer of songs and music for stage and film. His works consisted of zarzuela, Afro-Cuban and Cuban rhythms, suites and many songs that became Latin standards. They include "Siboney", " Malagueña" and " The Breeze And I" (''Andalucía''). In 1942 his great hit "Always in my heart" (''Siempre en mi Corazon'') was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song; it lost to " White Christmas". The Ernesto Lecuona Symphonic Orchestra performed the premiere of Lecuona's ''Black Rhapsody'' in the Cuban Liberation Day Concert at Carnegie Hall on 10 October 1943.Orovio, Helio 2004. ''Cuban music from A to Z''. Duke University, Durham NC; Tumi, Bath.

Although their music is rarely played today, Amadeo Roldán (1900–1939) and Alejandro García Caturla (1906–1940) were Cuba's symphonic revolutionaries during the first half of the 20th century. They both played a part in Afrocubanismo: the movement in black-themed Cuban culture with origins in the 1920s, and extensively analysed by Fernando Ortiz.

Roldan, born in Paris to a Cuban mulatta and a Spanish father, came to Cuba in 1919 and became the concert-master (first-chair violin) of the new Orquesta Sinfónica de La Habana in 1922. There he met Caturla, at sixteen a second violin. Roldan's compositions included ''Overture on Cuban themes'' (1925), and two ballets: ''La Rebambaramba'' (1928) and ''El milagro de Anaquille'' (1929). There followed a series of ''Ritmicas'' and ''Poema negra'' (1930) and ''Tres toques'' (march, rites, dance) (1931). In ''Motivos de son'' (1934) he wrote eight pieces for voice and instruments based on the poet Nicolás Guillén's set of poems with the same title. His last composition was two ''Piezas infantiles'' for piano (1937). Roldan died at 38 of a disfiguring facial cancer (he had been an inveterate smoker).

After his student days, Caturla lived all his life in the small central town of Remedios, where he became a lawyer to support his growing family. His ''Tres danzas cubanas'' for symphony orchestra was first performed in Spain in 1929. ''Bembe'' was premiered in Havana the same year. His ''Obertura cubana'' won first prize in a national contest in 1938. Caturla was murdered at 34 by a young gambler.

Founded in 1942 under the guidance of José Ardévol (1911–1981), a Catalan composer established in Cuba since 1930, the "Grupo de Renovación Musical" served as a platform for a group of young composers to develop a proactive movement with the purpose of improving and literally renovating the quality of the Cuban musical environment. During its existence from 1942 to 1948, the group organized numerous concerts at the Havana Lyceum in order to present their avant-garde compositions to the general public and fostered within its members the development of many future conductors, art critics, performers and professors. They also started a process of investigation and reevaluation of the Cuban music in general, discovering the outstanding work of Carlo Borbolla and promoting the compositions of Saumell, Cervantes, Caturla and Roldán. The "Grupo de Renovación Musical" included the following composers: Hilario González, Harold Gramatges, Julián Orbón, Juan Antonio Cámara, Serafín Pro, Virginia Fleites, Gisela Hernández, Enrique Aparicio Bellver, Argeliers León, Dolores Torres and Edgardo Martín. Other contemporary Cuban composers that were little or no related at all to the "Groupo de Renovación Musical" were: Aurelio de la Vega, Joaquín Nin-Culmell, Alfredo Diez Nieto and Natalio Galán.

Although, in Cuba, many composers have written both classical and popular creole types of music, the distinction became clearer after 1960, when (at least initially) the regime frowned on popular music and closed most of the night-club venues, whilst providing financial support for classical music rather than creole forms. From then on, most musicians have kept their careers on one side of the invisible line or the other. After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, a new crop of classical musicians came onto the scene. The most important of these is guitarist Leo Brouwer, who have made significant contributions to the technique and repertoire of the modern classical guitar, and has been the director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba. His directorship in the early 1970s of the "Grupo de Experimentacion Sonora del ICAIC" was instrumental in the formation and consolidation of the Nueva trova movement.

Other important composers from the early post-revolution period that began in 1959 were: Carlos Fariñas and Juan Blanco, a pioneer of "concrete" and "electroacoustic music" in Cuba.

Closely following the early post-revolution generation, a group of young composers started to attract the attention of the public that attended classical music concerts. Most of them had obtained degrees in reputable Schools outside the country thanks to scholarships granted by the government, like Sergio Fernández Barroso (also known as Sergio Barroso), that received a post-graduate degree from the Superior Academy of Music in Prague, and Roberto Valera, who studied with Witold Rudziński and Andrzej Dobrowolski in Poland. Three other composers belong to this group: Calixto Alvarez, Carlos Malcolm and Héctor Angulo.

In 1962, the North American composer Federico Smith arrives in Havana at that time. He remained in Cuba until his death, and made an important contribution to the Cuban musical patrimony.

During the early 1970s, a group of musicians and composers, most of them graduated from the National School of Arts and the Havana Conservatory, gathered around an organization recently created by the government as the junior section of UNEAC ( National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba), the Brigada Hermanos Saíz. Some of its member were composers Juan Piñera (nephew of the renowned Cuban writer Virgilio Piñera), Flores Chaviano, Armando Rodríguez Ruidíaz, Danilo Avilés, Magaly Ruiz, Efraín Amador Piñero and José Loyola. Other contemporary composers less involved with the organization were José María Vitier, Julio Roloff, and Jorge López Marín.

After the Cuban Revolution (1959), many future Cuban composers emigrated at a very young age and developed most of their careers outside the country. Within this group are the composers Tania León, Orlando Jacinto García, Armando Tranquilino, Odaline de la Martinez, José Raul Bernardo, Jorge Martín (composer) and Raul Murciano.

21st-century classical and art music

During the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century a new generation of composers emerged into the Cuban classical music panorama. Most of them received a solid musical education provided by the official arts school system created by the Cuban government and graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA). Some of those composers are Louis Franz Aguirre, Ileana Pérez Velázquez, Keila María Orozco, Viviana Ruiz, Fernando (Archi) Rodríguez Alpízar, Yalil Guerra, Eduardo Morales Caso, Ailem Carvajal Gómez, Irina Escalante Chernova and Evelin Ramón. All of them have emigrated and currently live and have worked in other countries.

Electroacoustic music in Cuba

Juan Blanco was the first Cuban composer to create an electroacoustic piece in 1961. This first composition, titled "Musica Para Danza", was produced with just an oscillator and three common tape recorders. Access to the necessary technological resources to produce electroacoustic music was always very limited for anyone interested. For this reason, it was not until 1969 that another Cuban composer, Sergio Barroso, dedicated himself to the creation of electroacoustic musical compositions.

In 1970, Juan Blanco began to work as a music advisor for the Department of Propaganda of ICAP (Insituto Cubano de Amistad con Los Pueblos). In this capacity, he created electroacoustic music for all the audiovisual materials produced by ICAP. After nine years working without restitution, Blanco finally obtained financing to set up an Electroacoustic Studio to be used for his work. He was appointed as Director of the Studio, but under the condition that he should be the only one to use the facility.

After a few months, and without asking for permission, he opened the Electroacoustic Studio to all composers interested in working with electroacoustic technology, thus creating the ICAP Electroacoustsic Music Workshop (TIME), where he himself provided training to all participants. In 1990, the ICAP Workshop changed its name to Laboratorio Nacional de Música Electroacústica (LNME) and its main objective was to support and promote the work of Cuban electroacoustic composers and sound artists.

Some years later, another electroacoustic music studio was created at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA). The Estudio de Música Electroacústica y por Computadoras (EMEC), currently named Estudio Carlos Fariñas de Arte Musical (Carlos Fariñas Studio of Musical Electroacoustic Art), is intended to provide electroacoustic music training to the composition students during the last years of their careers.

After 1970, Cuban composers such as Leo Brouwer, Jesús Ortega, Carlos Fariñas and Sergio Vitier began also creating electroacoustic pieces; and in the 1980s a group of composers that included Edesio Alejandro, Fernando (Archi) Rodríguez Alpízar, Marietta Véulens, Mirtha de la Torre, Miguel Bonachea and Julio Roloff started receiving instruction and working at the ICAP Electroacoustic Studio. Cuban composers that have utilized elecotroacoustics technology include Argeliers León, Juan Piñera, Roberto Valera, José Loyola, Ileana Pérez Velázquez and José Angel Pérez Puentes.

Most Cuban composers that established their residence outside Cuba have worked with electroacoustic technology. These include composers Aurelio de la Vega, Armando Tranquilino, Tania León, Orlando Jacinto García, Armando Rodríguez Ruidíaz, Ailem Carvajal Gómez and Irina Escalante Chernova.

Classical guitar in Cuba

From the 16th to the 19th century

The guitar (as it is known today or in one of its historical versions) has been present in Cuba since the discovery of the island by Spain. As early as the 16th century, a musician named Juan Ortiz, from the village of Trinidad, is mentioned by famous chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo as "gran tañedor de vihuela y viola" ("a great performer of the vihuela and the guitar"). Another "vihuelista", Alonso Morón from Bayamo, is also mentioned in the Spanish conquest chronicles during the 16th century.

A disciple of famous Spanish guitarist Dionisio Aguado, José Prudencio Mungol was the first Cuban guitarist trained in the Spanish guitar tradition. In 1893 he performed at a much-acclaimed concert in Havana, after returning from Spain. Mungol actively participated in the musical life of Havana and was a professor at the Hubert de Blanck conservatory.

20th century and beyond

Severino López was born in Matanzas. He studied guitar in Cuba with Juan Martín Sabio and Pascual Roch, and in Spain with renowned Catalan guitarist Miguel Llobet. Severino López is considered the initiator in Cuba of the guitar school founded by Francisco Tárrega in Spain.

Clara Romero (1888-1951), founder of the modern Cuban School of Guitar, studied in Spain with Nicolás Prats and in Cuba with Félix Guerrero. She inaugurated the guitar department at the Havana Municipal Conservatory in 1931, where she also introduced the teachings of the Cuban folk guitar style. She created the Guitar Society of Cuba (Sociedad Guitarrística de Cuba) in 1940, and also the "Guitar" (Guitarra) magazine, with the purpose of promoting the Society's activities. She was the professor of many Cuban guitarists including her son Isaac Nicola and her daughter Clara (Cuqui) Nicola.

After studying with his mother, Clara Romero, at the Havana Municipal Conservatory, Isaac Nicola (1916 – 1997) continued his training in Paris with Emilio Pujol, a disciple of Francisco Tárrega. He also studied the vihuela with Pujol and researched about the guitar's history and literature.

Modern Cuban Guitar School

After the Cuban revolution in 1959, Isaac Nicola and other professors such as Marta Cuervo, Clara (Cuqui) Nicola, Marianela Bonet and Leopoldina Núñez were integrated to the national music schools system, where a unified didactical method was implemented. This was a nucleus for the later development of a national Cuban Guitar School with which a new generation of guitarists and composers collaborated.

Maybe the most important contribution to the modern Cuban guitar technique and repertoire comes from Leo Brouwer (born 1939). The grandson of Ernestina Lecuona, sister of Ernesto Lecuona, Brouwer began studying the guitar with his father and after some time continued with Isaac Nicola. He taught himself harmony, counterpoint, musical forms and orchestration before completing his studies at the Juilliard School and the University of Hartford.

New generations

Since the 1960s, several generations of guitar performers, professors and composers have been formed under the Cuban Guitar School at educational institutions such as the Havana Municipal Conservatory, the National School of Arts, and the Instituto Superior de Arte. Others, such as Manuel Barrueco, a concertist of international renown, developed their careers outside the country. Among many other guitarists related to the Cuban Guitar School are Carlos Molina, Sergio Vitier, Flores Chaviano, Efraín Amador Piñero, Armando Rodríguez Ruidíaz, Martín Pedreira, Lester Carrodeguas, Mario Daly, José Angel Pérez Puentes and Teresa Madiedo. A younger group includes guitarists Rey Guerra, Aldo Rodríguez Delgado, Pedro Cañas, Leyda Lombard, Ernesto Tamayo, Miguel Bonachea, Joaquín Clerch and Yalil Guerra.

Classical piano in Cuba

After its arrival in Cuba at the end of the 18th century, the pianoforte (commonly called piano) rapidly became one of the favorite instruments among the Cuban population. Along with the humble guitar, the piano accompanied the popular Cuban "guarachas" and "contradanzas" (derived from the European Country Dances) at salons and ballrooms in Havana and all over the country. As early as in 1804, a concert program in Havana announced a vocal concert "accompanied at the fortepiano by a distinguished foreigner recently arrived" and in 1832, Juan Federico Edelmann (1795-1848), a renowned pianist, son of a famous Alsatian composer and pianist, arrived in Havana and gave a very successful concert at the Teatro Principal. Encouraged by the warm welcome, Edelmann decided to stay in Havana, and he was very soon promoted to an important position within the Santa Cecilia Philharmonic Society. In 1836, he opened a music store and publishing company.

One of the most prestigious Cuban musicians, Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963), began studying piano with his sister Ernestina and continued with Peyrellade, Saavedra, Nin and Hubert de Blanck. A child prodigy, Lecuona gave a concert, at age five, at the Círculo Hispano. When he graduated from the National Conservatory, he was awarded the First Prize and the Gold Medal of his class by unanimous decision of the board. He is by far the Cuban composer of greatest international recognition and his contributions to the Cuban piano tradition are considered exceptional.

Classical violin in Cuba

From the 16th to the 18th century

Bowed stringed instruments have been present in Cuba since the 16th century. Musician Juan Ortiz from the Ville of Trinidad is mentioned by chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo as a "great performer of "vihuela" and "viola". On In 1764, Esteban Salas y Castro, became the new chapel master of the Santiago de Cuba Cathedral, and to fulfill his musical duties he counted with a small vocal-instrumental group that included two violins. In 1793, numerous colonists fleeing from the slave revolt in Saint Domingue arrived in Santiago de Cuba, and an orchestra consisting of a flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, three horns, three violins, viola, two violoncellos, and percussion was founded.

From the 18th to the 19th century

During the transition from the 18th to the 19th centuries, the Havanese Ulpiano Estrada (1777–1847) offered violin lessons and conducted the Teatro Principal orchestra from 1817 to 1820. Apart from his activity as a violinist, Estrada kept a very active musical career as a conductor of numerous orchestras, bands and operas, and composing many contradanzas and other dance pieces, such as minuets and valses.

José Vandergutch, Belgian violinist, arrived at Havana along with his father Juan and brother Francisco, also violinists. They later returned to Belgium, but José established his permanent residence in Havana, where he acquired great recognition. Vandergutch offered numerous concerts as a soloist and accompanied by several orchestras, around the mid-19th century. He was a member of the Classical Music Association and also a Director of The "Asociación Musical de Socorro Mutuo de La Habana."

Within the universe of the classical Cuban violin during the 19th century, there are two outstanding Masters that may be considered among the greatest violin virtuosos of all time; they are José White Lafitte y Claudio Brindis de Salas Garrido.

After receiving his first musical instruction from his father, the virtuoso Cuban violinist José White Lafitte (1835–1918) offered his first concert in Matanzas on March 21, 1854. In that presentation he was accompanied by the famous American pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, whom encouraged him to further his musical instruction in Paris, and also collected funds for that purpose.

José White studied musical composition in the Conservatoire de Paris from 1855 to 1871. Ten months after his arrival he won the first prize in the violin category on the Conservatorie's contest and was highly praised by Gioachino Rossini. Later he was a professor of the renowned violinists George Enescu and Jacques Thibaud.

From 1877 to 1889, White was appointed as Director of the Imperial Conservatory in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, where he also served as court musician of the Emperor Pedro II. Later he returned to Paris, where he stayed until his death. The famous violin named "Swan's song" was his preferred instrument and his most famous composition is the Habanera "La bella cubana". White also composed many other pieces, including a concert for violin and orchestra.

Claudio José Domingo Brindis de Salas y Garrido (1852–1911) was a renowned Cuban violinist, son of the also famous violinist, double-bassist and conductor Claudio Brindis de Salas (1800-1972), which conducted one of the most popular orchestras of Havana during the first half of the 19th century, named "La Concha de Oro" (The Golden Conch). Claudio José surpassed the fame and expertise of his father and came to acquire international recognition.

Claudio Brindis de Salas Garrido began his musical studies with his father and continued with Maestros José Redondo and the Belgian José Vandergutch. He offered his first concert in Havana in 1863, in which Vandegutch participated as accompanist. The famous pianist and composer Ignacio Cervantes also participated in that event.

According with the contemporary critique, Brindis de Salas was considered one of the most outstanding violinists of his time at an international level. Alejo Carpentier referred to him as: "The most outstanding black violinist from the 19th century... something without any precedent in the musical history of the continent".

The French government named him member of the Légion d'Honneur, and gave him a nobility title of "Baron". In Buenos Aires he received a genuine Stradivarius, and while living in Berlin he married a German lady, was named Chamber Musician of the Emperor and received an honorary citizenship from that country. Brindis de Salas died poor and forgotten in 1911 from tuberculosis, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1930 his remains were transferred to Havana with great honors.

Another outstanding Cuban violinist from the 19th century was Rafael Díaz Albertini (1857–1928). He studied violin with José Vandergutch and Anselmo López (1841-1858), well known Havanese violinist that was dedicated also to music publishing. In 1870, Albertini travelled to Paris with the purpose of perfecting his technique with famous violinist Jean-Delphin Alard, and in 1875 received First prize in the Paris Contest, in which he subsequently participated as a Juror. He toured extensively through the world, accompanied some times by prestigious Masters such as Hugo Wolf and Camille Saint-Saëns. In 1894 he made presentations, along with Ignacion Cervantes, through the most important cities of Cuba.

Prominent Cuban violinists from the second half of the 19th century and the first of the 20th include Manuel Muñoz Cedeño (b. 1813), José Domingo Bousquet (b. 1823), Carlos Anckermann (b. 1829), Antonio Figueroa (b. 1852), Ramón Figueroa (b. 1862), Juan Torroella (b.1874), Casimiro Zertucha (b. 1880), Joaquín Molina (b. 1884), Marta de La Torre (1888), Catalino Arjona (b. 1895) and Diego Bonilla (1898-).

From the 20th to the 21st century

During the first half of the 20th century the name of Amadeo Roldán stands out (1900–1939), because apart from an excellent violinist, professor and conductor, Roldán is considered one of the most important Cuban composers of all time.

After his graduation at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1935 at 16 years old, the renowned Cuban violinist Ángel Reyes (1919–1988) developed a very successful career as a soloist and also accompanied by prestigious orchestras of many countries. He established his residence in the United States at a very young age, obtained an award in the Ysaÿe Contest in Brussels and was a professor at the Michigan and Northwestern Universities, until his retirement in 1985.

Eduardo Hernández Asiaín (1911-2010) was born in Havana, began his musical studies at a very early age and offered his first concert when seven years old. When he was 14, he obtained the First Award at the Municipal Conservatory of Havana and was appointed as Concertino of the Havana Symphony Orchestra. In 1932, he travelled to Madrid to further his musical education with professors Enrique Fernández Arbós and Antonio Fernández Bordas. Since 1954, Hernández Asiaín performed as a soloist with the orchestras from the Pasdeloup Concert Society and the Radiodiffusion française in Paris, the "Orquesta Nacional de España", the "Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao", the "Orquesta de Cámara de Madrid" and the "Orquesta Sinfónica y de Cámara de San Sebastián", of which he is the founder. In 1968, he was appointed as First Violin of the "Cuarteto Clásico" of RTVE, participating with pianist Isabel Picaza González in the "Quinteto Clásico de RNE", with which he offered concerts and made numerous recordings in Spain and other countries. He also toured extensively through the US.

Other prominent Cuban violinists from the first half of the 20th century are: Robero Valdés Arnau (1919-1974), Alberto Bolet and Virgilio Diago.

After 1959, already in the post revolutionary period, stands out a Cuban violinist that has made a substantial contribution, not just to the development of the violin and the bowed string instruments, but also to the national musical culture in general.

Evelio Tieles began to study music in Cuba with his father, Evelio Tieles Soler, when he was seven years old, and continued later with professor Joaquín Molina. Between 1952 and 1954, Tieles studied violin in Paris, France, with Jacques Thibaud and René Benedetti. In 1955 he returned to Paris and studied at the National Superior Music Conservatory in that city, and in 1958, he continued his musical training at Conservatorio Tchaikovsky in Moscú, where he was a disciple of renowned violinists David Oistrakh and Igor Oistrakh. Tieles graduated in 1963 and by recommendation of the Conservatory he pursued his master's degree from 1963 to 1966, with the same mentioned professors. Tieles received also professional training from the prestigious violinists Henryk Szeryng and Eduardo Hernández Asiaín.

Evelio Tieles has offered numerous presentations as a concert performer, in a duo with his brother, pianist Cecilio Tieles, or accompanied by the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra and other symphonic and chamber ensembles. He has performed along with prestigious conductors such as Thomas Sanderling, Boris Brott, Enrique González Mántici y Manuel Duchesne Cuzán, among others.

Tieles has established his residence in Spain since 1984, and he teaches violin in the Vila-Seca Conservatory, in the province of Tarragona, where he has been appointed as "Professor Emeritus". He has also served at the Superior Conservatory of the Barcelona Lyceum as Chief of the Chamber Music Department (1991–1998), Head of the Division of Bowed String Instruments (1986-2002) and Academic Director (2000–2002).

Apart from his outstanding career as a concert performer and professor, during the Post-Revolutionary period, Tieles promoted and organized in Cuba the bowed string instruments training, fundamentally for the violin.

Another prominent violinist is professor Alla Tarán (1941). She was formed as a violinist in her native Ukraine and worked as a professor of Chamber Ensemble Practice. Tarán established her residence in Cuba since 1969.

Alfredo Muñoz (1949) began studying the violin at Conservatorio Orbon in Havana, Cuba, and subsequently continued at the National School of Arts and the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA). He joined the National Symphony Orchestra as a violinist in 1972 and since then has been very active as a soloist and a member of the White Trio, in Cuba and abroad. He is currently a professor at the Instituto Superior de Artes (ISA).

Other Cuban violinists that have developed their careers between the 20th and the 21st century are: Armando Toledo (1950), Julián Corrales (1954), Miguel del Castillo and Ricardo Jústiz.

21st century

Already at the beginning of the 21st century the violinists Ilmar López-Gavilán, Mirelys Morgan Verdecia, Ivonne Rubio Padrón, Patricia Quintero and Rafael Machado are worthy of note.

Opera in Cuba

Opera has been present in Cuba since the latest part of the 18th century, when the first full-fledged theater, called Coliseo, was built. Since then to present times, the Cuban people have highly enjoyed opera, and many Cuban composers have cultivated the operatic genre, sometimes with great success at an international level. The best Cuban lyrical singer in the 20th century was the operatic tenor Francisco Fernandez Dominicis (Italian name: Francesco Dominici) (1885-1968). The best Cuban female lyrical singer in the 20th century was the mezzo-soprano Marta Perez (1924-2009). She sang at La Scala in Milan, Italy in 1955.

The 19th century

The first documented operatic event in Havana

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