Classical Cuba
Jeremy Pound heads to Cuba to discover how an all-female string orchestra is leading the way in championing the country’s rich classical music heritage
Jeremy Pound visits Havana, where an all-female orchestra is highlighting its nation’s musical heritage
For a crash course in Cuban classical music history, I couldn’t ask for a finer set of guides. Sitting around a large antique table with me are four of the country’s leading composers – Roberto Valera, Jorge López Marin, Guido López-gavilán and Juan Piñera – plus pianist and teacher Ulises Hernández. Everyone listens intently to each other and there is not a mobile phone in sight. Only the pouring and stirring of the umpteenth round of coffees is allowed to break the flow of conversation. At the top of the table, meanwhile, is the person who’s brought us all together today, conductor Zenaida Romeu.
We’re at the HQ of Camerata Romeu, an all-female string ensemble that, founded by its namesake in 1993, has established itself as an important cog in Cuba’s classical music machine. As orchestral homes go, this one is pretty special. Dating from the early-18th century, Havana’s Church and Convent of St Francis of Assisi provides not only rather distinguished rehearsal and office spaces but also a performance venue with superb acoustics – courtyards and cloisters that were once filled with prayer today resound to violins and cellos. Looking down at us as we chat are pictures of notables who have had the pleasure of hearing Camerata Romeu play, including Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.
The Prince of Wales is another fan. As, evidently, is Jorge López Marin. ‘Camerata Romeu has enabled us as composers to have our music be known and performed in Europe and elsewhere,’ he enthuses. ‘Zenaida’s whole concept for the ensemble is something we have been able to use to get our word out.’
The ‘concept’ he refers to is placing Cuban classical music at the heart of Camerata Romeu’s existence. From 1996’s La Bella Cubana to the recently released La Bella Habana, the group’s discs have made a point of championing composers from its home patch – included among those are the album Non Divisi, devoted to the music of the man sitting to my right, Roberto Valera. Romeu doesn’t just perform and record Cuban music, it often commissions it, too.
So who are the big names in Cuban classical music? It’s this question that launches my potted history lesson. To summarise a long yet fascinating story, the seeds of Cuba’s musical
style were first planted by composers such as the native Esteban Salas in the 18th century – although Salas and his peers wrote primarily for the church, says Ulises Hernandez, even here you can hear a distinctive voice emerging.
Things then really got going in the 19th century. While Cuba’s economic boom, thanks to its sugar industry, saw an influx of lavishly funded European culture – a number of Verdi’s operas were premiered in Havana before the US, I am proudly told – the island’s own composers also started taking music in different new directions by combining traditional European forms with Creole rhythms and harmonies. The names of Manuel Saumell, Ignacio Cervantes and José White all fly around our conversation table, accompanied by nods of agreement.
This European-meets-cuban approach has continued throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, including after Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution of 1959. ‘Importing things, including minerals, oil and so on, is a characteristic of Cuba,’ says Valera, who studied in Poland in the 1960s. ‘And that applies to music too. I also always say that Cubans are allowed to stick
‘‘Cubans are allowed to appropriate anything from elsewhere and use it in our own culture ’’
their noses into everyone else’s business! We are allowed to appropriate anything from elsewhere and use it in our own culture.’
López Marin, who also headed to the Eastern bloc to study, in his case under Khachaturian, adds his thoughts. ‘My teacher always said “I want your music to have a different smell. Compose what you want, but remember one thing – it is music with a melody that is destined to survive”. That goes beyond the use of any technical resources and so on, and Cuban music has a melodic quality that is unique.’
As I later head out into the streets of Old Havana, admiring the colourful array of 1950s US cars as I go, the tunes I hear coming from every other bar – usually played by live bands – are familiar. That’s because many of them were recorded by the Buena Vista Social Club, the band of veteran Cuban musicians that, featured in a documentary by Wim Wenders, enjoyed global popularity at the turn of the millennium. While my assembled composers don’t begrudge the likes of Compay Segundo, Rubén Gonzalez and Ibrahim Ferrer their moment in the spotlight (all are now sadly deceased), they would like people to be aware that Cuban music goes far beyond ‘Chan Chan’, ‘La Bayamesa’ and all. The increasingly high profile of Camerata Romeu is, for them, all the more welcome.
In the evening, I get to experience what the Camerata Romeu magic is all about. The venue is a swish one – the rooftop terrace of the ultra-plush Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski, complete with swimming pool and stunning view of the National Capitol Building, home of Cuba’s parliament. As a setting, it seems a little out of kilter with the lively-but-earthy feel of downtown Havana itself, but we’ll let that pass for now. The players, meanwhile, have been kitted out with sparkly new red dresses for the occasion, a filmed showpiece concert to help launch the La Bella Habana disc and promote the group’s proposed debut tour to Europe.
With the exception of double bassist Caridad Zaldivia Lores, who has been with the group since 1997 and enjoys the nickname ‘The Dean’, the ensemble all look in their twenties or thereabouts. They’re an engaging bunch too. Playing from memory, they exchange knowing nods and grins as they approach certain passages in the music. Cellists sway in rhythm and, from time to time, sections of the upper strings stand up to play. During one piece, Guido Lopez-gavilán’s Camerata en Guaganco, one of the cello section puts down her instrument to dance centre-stage. The concert is rounded off by an encore in which the players sing in three-part harmony. It’s great fun, and very impressive.
‘My idea for the Camerata is to attract younger listeners,’ Zenaida Romeu tells me when I chat to her before the concert. ‘I want to give them something that will bring both happiness and a rich cultural experience. To do that, I conduct a young orchestra dressed in Chanel style, which is very different from normal. And without music stands, there is a togetherness on stage and with the audience. It becomes like theatre, and the players can’t hide their smiles and so on. Most people don’t go to a concert just to hear it but to see it as well.’
Romeu, who comes from a distinguished musical family and spent time working in Spain before returning to Cuba, earned her spurs as a choral conductor, where her philosophy was much the same as now: to get young people involved in the joy of music. The all-female line-up of the Camerata is obviously a source of pride too. ‘When I founded it, I wanted to show that, although we are seen by some as a third-world country, women have an important place in Cuban society. Gender has become irrelevant here since the 1930s. In general, we have the same opportunities for jobs and the same salaries as men.’
Given the average age of the players, turnover of Camerata Romeu personnel is understandably high – not least when, on tours to the United States, some have their heads turned by the rich opportunities that lie elsewhere – but the ensemble’s website explains proudly about how its members have gone on to appear in leading orchestras elsewhere. And besides, despite the discipline needed to perform at the level that Romeu demands, recruiting new talent never seems to have been a problem.
As for the Camerata’s repertoire, Romeu is keen to point out it’s not all from Cuba, or even Latin America. Traditional European works, including Bartók’s Divertimento and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, are also in the kitbag as, she tells me with a smile, are pieces by British composers.
Cuban music, however, will always be their bedrock. ‘I discovered that we had all these treasures from the 19th and 20th centuries that no one had played before,’ she explains. ‘Never before has there been in Cuba an orchestra that specialises in our own music. The Camerata Romeu’s repertoire is unique and my players express it in a unique way. This is our space.’ Camerata Romeu’s album La Bella Habana is out now on Cugate Classics (CGC053)