Last December 14 Cuban workers of the culture celebrated their day with a tribute to birthday of poet Raúl Gómez García, Soycubano joins this celebration honoring María Teresa Vera, ambassador of the Cuban song and we dedicate our main article to Elio Revé In Memoriam Changüí Festival to be held in Guantánamo from December 20 to 23 and it will be chaired by Elito Revé, artist from Musicalia´s catalogue, Artex S.A. Also know about Soycubano´s special offers for New Year festivities.

The changüí is the most popular Guantanamero rhythm born in the foothills.

The third edition of the National Changüí Festival, to be held in Guantánamo from December 20 to 23, will provide a new opportunity to know about the most recent values of the genre and to make contributions to its tradition in the island.

This year the meeting will be dedicated to dancer Evelia Noblet known as Bella, tresero Guillermo Mustelier, the popular Bulé; bongosero Andrés Fisto, also known as Taberas and the group Estrellas Campesinas, on its 55 anniversary of creation.

“Rafael Inciarte. Simientes, paralelos y proyecciones del Changüí” theoretic colloquium will take place during the first two days at Plaza de la Revolución Mariana Grajales of that city.

The most important activity of the event will be the contest of Changüí creation and the usual competitions of treseros, marimberos, bongoseros, regineros and dancers, occasion in which different generations of this exclusive sonority from the eastern part of the country, which is considered the mother of the son in Cuba, gather together.

This musical genre arose in the northwest part of Guantánamo where municipalities Salvador, Yateras and Manuel Tames are located. These localities has a great musical changüí tradition that is why there will be present the usual Fiestas changüiseras as well as El Rumbón de las Cuatro Esquinas and the performance of different artists and cultural institutions of Guantánamo.

The Festival will be chaired by Elio Revé Jr. who has furthered this genre in its most contemporaneous tendency. The event promises to meet people’s expectations who are totally involved in this great changüí feast.

The Changüí arose due to different cultural and pigmentation folksongs. According to Serva Universal Encyclopedia changüí means old dance of common people, definition that coincides with the one in the Achetele Castello and Sopena Encyclopedias.

Many artists were distinguished centuries ago and they are still alive in the folklore of Guantánamo people, such as Nene Manfugaz, Juan Mosqueda, Julín Núñez, Pedro Masé, Marcelino Latamblé, Juan Logás, Benjamín Castellanos, Raúl Carpe, Chito Latamblé among other outstanding figures like Elio Revé Matos, who is considered the father of the changüí.

During the closure gala of the Festival it will be communicated the results of the Creation contest and there it will take place the great Changüí and Cumbancha descarga Ahorta Si.

René de la Nuez, Nartional Prize of Plastic Arts 2007

The National Prize of Plastic Arts 2007 was granted to René de la Nuez, caricaturist born in 1937 in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuban humor’s birthplace.

This prize was established in 1994 in order to recognize once a year the work of a Cuban artist, resident in the country and with an outstanding plastic work.

René de la Nuez, National Prize of Plastic Art 2007 expressed in an exclusive interview to the Cuban Television his surprise for this tribute and expressed his gratitude to the journalists and to this profession as main character if his work.

The character El Loquito, created by René de la Nuez to criticize the military dictatorship in Cuba and support the insurrectional fight in 1957, spoke when all mouths were quiet because of fear and repression.

El Loquito with a hat made of paper criticized the elections of 1958 and supported the movement in favor of the national liberation.

This man, deserving of the National Prize of Plastic Arts 2007, has more than 60 000 caricatures, all of them criticizing not only the Cuban society of that moment but also the world’s.

René de la Nuez painter and drawer also won the gold medal in the Biennial of Graphic Humor of Castilla-La Mancha with a caricature of Dulcinea del Toboso, the woman Don Quijote loved in his delirium.

It has been an honor for this Cuban intellectual, who has been committed with the Revolution since 1959, to win the National Prize of Plastic Arts 2007 which has also been granted to other plastic personalities such as Pedro Pablo Oliva, José Gómez Fresquet, Roberto Fabelo, among other painters highly esteemed in the art market. .

Article by Hortensia Barranco Concepción. Taken from radionuevitas.co.cu

María Teresa Vera, the representative of the Cuban song

It began when troubadours were called “singers”. The music was her vocation and for a while it was another way to make her living. (…) She did not come from Vuelta Arriba, as the greatest soneros, but from La Vueltabajo like the best tobacco of the world, she was born in Guanajay.

Her voice had a lot from soil, tobacco bittersweet and the aroma of the jasmine flowers. She joined the ones who were playing the leading role in a cultural adventure: they changed the way to enjoy the music in a town where people loved music. As them, she composed and sang the songs that existence offered to her, its joys and nuisances naturally.

María Teresa Vera (1895-1965) registered her name in the founders' group since her debut in 1911 at the Politeama Grande when she became indispensable. Then she turned into the interpreter par excellence of the greatest artists from the Cuban trova, she worked a lot to broadcast it on the radio, from Radio Cadena Suaritos to Radio Progresso radio stations, and then she took it to the record labels in the United States. The mysterious possibilities of her voice joined first Rafael Zequeira, then the legendary Ignacio Piñeiro and finally Lorenzo Hierrezuelo. (…)

(…) The virtuosity of María Teresa Vera consisted in keeping the sense given to the songs by their composers. That is why these songs are also documents from the musical arks of Cuba; we feel palpitations in many compositions because they constitute a powerful and healthy root.

(…) Who listens to a CD by María Teresa gets approached to the genuine product that was herself, devoted to a profession that scented her existence. Her inimitable incorporation of the Cuban essences makes me jealous. I would have liked a lot to listen to her now for the first time and discover the pure almond of the island. And get myself back to the extended jewels of a great and popular singer’s file, and so was she in the widest and definite sense of the word, just when the son’s and other rhythms' roots that made up the traditional trova wealth are refreshed and get exalted as a legacy which continuity have palpitations in the crowd.

Taken from www.artemisaradioweb.cu