He is an old friend of Cuba Si, we always enjoy his very Cuban songs and we do not miss the opportunity to update from our pages how the work of singer-songwriter Tony Ávila is going.
Tell us about Universo, the album you have on the way with Bis Music.
“Universo is an album with my group, very varied, that has grown a lot and I don’t want to remove the songs. It’s already 18 songs. The proposal that I’m going to make to the record company is to release two volumes. Two discs in a single package. Above all, there are some topics that have come for context and I want them to be there but without bringing out others.
“The art on the album is by Sancho, an artist from Matanzas, but he also felt so motivated that he decided to paint a piece for each work and more than one in some cases.
“We want Ediciones Vigía to make the songbook, we have already discussed it with its director Agustina Ponce. We want to do the premiere in Matanzas, which will include an exhibition, book launch and concert.”
In what part of the process is this album?
“The arrangements have already been made and it is orchestrated. The recording is missing. Probably in June we will be recording this album in Cienfuegos, in the Eusebio Delfín studios. We hope that all the ideas that have been boiling materialize. Hopefully it will be ready soon.”
And what can you tell us about the phonogram you have with the Colibrí label?
“It was leading to a more cardenense album. The idea that Colibrí proposed to me is to make a solo album, but with the future it has led to a more accompanied album than any other. It has several guests from Cardenas, who when I put together the repertoire, what did he sing and I was doing, they came to me. There is the singer Carmen Lidia Maden, the Cárdenas children’s choir, Loreliyn Valero who is a teacher at the guitar and lute music school, there is my son Idiel Antonio with his girlfriend Jennifer Pino, both of them make up the Cantares duo. There are also some musicians from my group. The name is “To whom it may concern”. There are three songs that are very significant for me because they are dedicated to the daughters of three of my friends: Amanda, Daniela and Carmen. You are also invited the children’s choir of Cárdenas It is an album of very personal and heartfelt songs.
“Some of the songs you performed recently at the Sauto Theater, are you interested in confronting them with the public?
“The song “Now”, which is like a funk, is included in Universe. “As I would like to be” is going to be in To Whom It May Concern. This is how I anticipate the public’s reaction to one song or another. It’s a compass.”
There is in your work trova of the purest, let’s say, song, guaracha… what really is Tony Ávila?
“A mixture of all that. It is my essence for being Cuban, the Cuban has a way of expressing himself that is musical, histrionic, picturesque, he has all that art embedded in his being and what we do from the stage we do it protected by that mixture I am everything that I have learned, that I inherited. There are songs that have to do with love, with social issues, questions, and searches.”
READ MORE_ Tony Ávila: Trova has been the soundtrack of the Revolution
Tony Ávila: I came because I am Cuban
The Tony Ávila case or the ingenuity of being promoted in Miami
