Interview with Actor Eduardo Sanchez Torel
Eduardo Sanchez Torel is an Argentinian-born actor with a distinguished career in Spain and Cuba. As he noted, “I appreciate the struggle of Mariela Castro to change things.”
Helson Hernandez
Cuba’s “LezKno” Photographing Dreams
Yasser Lezcano is a point of reference in the visual arts in Cuba. He told HT: “I never saw art as a way of life, nor did I dream that I would make a living from it.”
Heidi Igualada, A Female Cuban Troubadour
“It’s good that there are more women creating Cuban trova songs,” said Heidi Igualada in her interview with Havana Times.
Cuban Storyteller Mayra Navarro
“I was a student of music at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, in my fourth year studying piano, with some great teachers, and one day I came home and told my family to sell the piano because I wasn’t going to continue studying music, I wanted to be a great storyteller,” Mayra Navarro told HT.
Cuban Soprano Milagro de los Angeles
The soprano Milagro de los Angeles, one of opera’s leading figures in Cuba today, recorded her first album with a rich selection of music. As she pointed out, though, “Incredibly, my debut in a leading role wasn’t in my country.”
A Cuban Who Made It to the Paris Olympia
“I’m a guajira (a farm girl), and I’ll always be one,” said Cuban singer Leyanis Lopez in her interview with HT. “My first record was in 1999, “Como la mariposa” (Like a butterfly), on the foreign label Lusafrica, along with my musicians in Guantanamo.”
Cuban Painter Yudit Vidal: “Creating to Live”
“To me, creating is living,” said contemporary Cuban visual artist and Universal Ambassador of Peace, Yudit Faife Vidal, from the city of Trinidad, in her interview with HT.
Niurka Gonzalez, A Cuban Flute Virtuoso
Niurka Gonzalez is one of the greatest concert performers of merit today on the island. As she commented, “We’ve been able to play almost all of the most important works in the repertoire for flute and piano.”
M Alfonso: The Cuban “Madonna”
Today we’re talking with M Alfonso, a young performer from the island who has a promising career. Explaining her beginnings in music, M said, “When I was 7, I got an offer to sing with Silvio Rodriguez.”
Cuban Musician Efrain Amador Piñero
Guitarist and lutist Efrain Amador Piñero, now 65, is credited with having the academic study of the island’s indigenous instruments, ones like the lute and tres, accepted into art schools in Cuba. “I consider it unfair when an instrument is separated from the genre that it represents.”