MIAMI, United States. – This Friday marks the 101st anniversary of the birth of Luis Carbonell, who came into the world on July 26, 1923 in Santiago de Cuba.
From an early age, Carbonell showed talent and dedication to art. He learned solfeggio, theory and piano with the teacher Josefina Farrés and at 15 he was already an English teacher and dabbled in the violin, although he soon returned to the piano.
His career took off when he was hired as a piano accompanist at the Santiago radio station CMKC. “The producer asked me to recite a poem between numbers, so as not to make the songs so close together… Without intending to, without wanting to, almost by chance, I started reciting,” Carbonell once recalled.
Known for his virtuosity and his tireless pursuit of perfection, Carbonell was also a prominent musical advisor: he worked with important Cuban singers and vocal groups such as Facundo Rivero’s quartet and the D’Aida. “He was a demanding artist, very demanding of himself,” has stood out the writer, journalist and researcher Leonardo Depestre Cantony.
His relationship with emblematic figures such as Ernesto Lecuona and Esther Borja marked his career. In 1953, Carbonell traveled to Spain with Lecuona and Borja to present the work The coffee plantation“We performed in Madrid and Barcelona for several months. The critics’ comments were always extraordinarily favourable,” the famous reciter recounted about this experience.
Luis Carbonell was recognized not only for his talent, but also for his humility. Despite his numerous successes and recognitions, he lived a simple life. “Nothing fancy, although he had two things to do: one, the piano where he could teach and listen to the voices of his ‘students’… second, his plants, humble little companion plants that were very well looked after,” Depestre Cantony described his home.
A fervent admirer of poetry, especially the work of Nicolas GuillenCarbonell also gave life to the creations of poets such as Emilio BallagasJosé Zacarias Tallet, Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca, among others.
Recognized as “the watercolorist of Antillean poetry” by the Argentine actor Pepe Biondi, Carbonell was a sought-after figure in the Cuban Television from the beginning and shared the stage with great international artists. On the Island he was awarded the National Music and Humor Awards.
Luis Carbonell died at the age of 90, on May 14, 2014 in Havana.
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