In a meeting that he described as “without protocol”, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, received at the Palace of the Revolution this Wednesday, as night was falling, talented artists who took part in the 37th International Jazz Plaza Festival, an event that took place in Havana between January 18 and 23.
Together with his partner Lis Cuesta Peraza, and accompanied by other hosts such as the member of the Secretariat and Head of the Ideological Department in the Central Committee of the Party, Rogelio Polanco Fuentes, the Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh, and the Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso Grau, the Head of State told the guests that the meeting “has a lot to do with the energy, with the spirit, with the emotions that the recently closed Jazz Festival left us.”
Regarding the event, the dignitary commented that it “has a lot of importance, a lot of significance”: “it was necessary for us – he emphasized – the gesture of thanking you, the Organizing Committee, the institutions, and all the artists who participated, for that contribution. ”.
The President of the Republic of Cuba explained that “after we have lived through a terrible year and a half between the pandemic, Yankee pressure, and an extremely complicated economic-social situation due to all the things that you know have happened in the country, we have to fill spirituality, we have to work not only economically, we have to work on the spirituality of our people”.
The president spoke to the artists about the value of “providing happiness, emotions; that people can renew their aspirations”. And he valued the transcendence involved in holding a Jazz Festival in conditions that “we knew” were difficult: Everything was challenging – he evoked – he; “We knew that for our friends who were in other places it would be difficult to come, they would have pressure as they are now when they return.”
Díaz-Canel Bermúdez highlighted to the guests: “I think the Festival was excellent: excellent for what they delivered, excellent for the quality, excellent for the virtuosity. I was able to be in two concerts, so this is not a compliment; I was in two concerts that we enjoyed tremendously as a family, and we could appreciate the quality”.
The other thing that the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party highlighted when referring to the Jazz Festival, was “all that unity between already established figures and young people, with tremendous values.” In his opinion, that confluence “demonstrates a lot the strength of culture, of art”, because without a doubt it was the opportunity to “meet friends and be able to share, and also to be able to hug each other after a time of COVID-19, when the hugs had moved away a little.
For the above reasons – Díaz-Canel Bermúdez argued- “we asked that we could share a while, that we could chat for a while as what we are: friends, brothers, and with the common interest of defending culture, defending our identity, defending our roots. ”.
The tone of the meeting was one of emphatic gratitude on the part of the president, taking into account “the quality of the Festival” that brought together musicians from several countries and even maintained an intense online programming through the social networks associated with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Cuba. .
Jazz Plaza was held in a context marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, but adversity did not prevent the public from being given the virtuous performance, live, of important groups.
Among the guests at the Palace of the Revolution, the pianist, composer and orchestrator Ignacio Herrera, Nachito, did not go unnoticed, who starred last Sunday night, at the National Theater in the capital, in the concert “Cuba lives”, and in which he shared with the Habana Jazz orchestra, the National Symphony, the Entrevoces choir, and the student band of the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory.
The story of Nachito, his saga of how the love and medical professionalism that jumped borders between Cuba, the United States and other countries and saved him from the clutches of COVID-19 -whose testimony he shared before our television cameras a few days ago- , reminds us that music is the perfect bridge for good feelings, for solidarity, and for the best of the human soul.
