The 35th edition of the emblematic Festival Boleros de Oro will begin this Sunday with an inaugural gala at the Cuban National Theaterentitled “Boleros: The Smoke of Memory”, reported official media on the Island.
The show will be directed by the experienced José Ramón Artigas and will feature the participation of new and experienced voices who defend the genre in Cuba, including Gretel Cazón, Ernesto Roel and Emilia Morales, according to an office of the Cuban News Agency (ACN).
The participating artists will honor the work of iconic interpreters of Cuban song such as Esther Borja and Cesar Portillo of the Lightas well as Félix B. Caignet, who transcended in the world of drama and also dedicated himself to musical composition, adds the report.
#CanalCaribbean| The gala #Boleros: The smoke of memory will take place today in the Covarrubias Hall of the National Theater of Cuba, as part of the program of the Boleros de Oro Festival Tú mi delirio, scheduled until June 26. #CubaIsCulture pic.twitter.com/SrGK8ppA6H
– Caribbean Channel (@CanalCaribeCuba) June 19, 2022
Boleros de Oro, an event that has not been held for four years, will be dedicated on this occasion to the centenary of Cuban radio and the birth of Portillo de la Luz, explained José Loyola, president and founder of the conclave.
The publication recalls that Loyola recently commented at a press conference that the dedication to the radio is due to the fact that this has been the means of communication that has spread music the most in Cuba and, above all, the bolero.
Regarding Portillo de la Luz, he stated that the author of “Contigo en la Distancia” was a defender of filin as a bolero modality, adds the source.
This edition of Boleros de Oro has a special connotation because that musical genre has been inscribed since 2021 on the list of cultural heritage of the nationnarrow the ACN.
In addition to the National Theater, other places in Havana will function as venues for the event, such as the Casa del Alba Cultural, the Salón Rosado de la Tropical, the Sala Villena of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) and the House of Culture Julián del Casal, in Old Havana.
The event will also have an academic section with the Colloquium of the Boleros de Oro Festival at the Uneac headquarters, under the tutelage of Alicia Valdés Cantero and with the interventions of the essayist and art critic Roberto Méndez, the writer Zaida Capote and students of Musicology and Composition at the University of the Arts.
Likewise, it will include a study on the 120 years of life of Nilo Menéndez, composer, conductor and pianist, author of the emblematic song “Aquellos Ojos Verdes” and one of the greatest diffusers of Caribbean sonorities in the United States since 1920, he adds. a report from the agency Latin Press (PL).
The colloquium also incorporates the work of the composer and guitarist José Tejedor, creator, among other songs, of “En las tinieblas de la noche”, “Doces vezes” and “Como nave sin camino”, and Rafael Lay Apesteguía, architect of the sonority of the legendary Aragón orchestra.
In addition, the play “Luz”, by Osvaldo Doimeadiós, will return to the stage during all the days of the festival, by the Oficio de Isla Creative Community.
From the old warehouses of San José, take to the stage this piece, winner of the 2021 Villanueva Prize, which is an evocation of bolero in the voices of its actors and, at the same time, is a journey through the poetry of the late Sigfredo Ariel, underlines the ACN.
The Boleros de Oro Festival, founded in 1987, praises the work of composers, performers and researchers whose work contributes to the enrichment of the bolero as a musical genre of a patrimonial nature for Cuba and who aspires to elevate that category on a world scale, adds the agency.
