With more than 30 years dedicated to music, Cuban singer Zulema Iglesias faces in just one week in Russia A new challenge: to represent your country in the International Interview Song Contest, the alternative to Eurovision created in the extinct socialist field.
“I am scared, but excited, happy and grateful at the same time for being the one chosen to represent Cuba,” Churches told EFE From his native Santiago de Cuba, where he prepares for the contest.
Interview, a festival resumed by Soviet times, when it was created as an alternative to the European musical contest, will be attended by interpreters from 23 countries, including Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, decreed at the beginning of the year to resume this festival, which was born in 1965 under the auspices of the International Radio and Television Organization of the countries of the missing socialist block.
The contest will take place on September 20 in Moscow and the winner will take home an award of 30 million rubles (about 375,000 dollars), according to Russian authorities.
The Cuban interpreter will open the contest, as it was known this Friday, and will compete with her song “Guaguancó”, included in her album Only you.
“It is an issue that shows our roots, the cubanía, the essence of the Cuban, and I want to convey that to the entire world,” said Iglesias, who sees interview as “an exchange and a brotherhood between different peoples.”
Cuba will participate with about twenty countries at Muscú Festival in Moscow
Guaguancó dose
The Santiago artist remarked that he will give everything on stage and expressed her desire that the public “discover the essence of the Cuban through this musical genre,” the Guaguancó, a type of festive and urban Cuban rumba that stands out for its intense percussion and the interaction between the soloist and the choir.
Iglesias is part of the Catalog of Artists of the state company of recordings and musical editions (EGREM) of Cuba, as well as the Company Company of Music and the shows Miguel Matamoros, of Santiago de Cuba.
He said that the preparation process for the contest “has been a very beautiful process”, which has enjoyed “to the fullest.”
“During the production of the subject I had very unmatched moments because I shared in the studies with excellent musicians of different generations that put all their efforts, their soul, their talent, to be an exceptional and masterful accompaniment,” he said.
Iglesias reiterated that it will be “a challenge to participate in scenarios as great as the interview”, but was confident that he will give his best to take the Russian public “the Cuban tradition.”
The artistic career of this Cuban artist includes six albums and presentations in stages of Spain, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Mexico. He has also collaborated with Cuban musicians such as Pianist Frank Fernández, singer Beatriz Márquez and guitarist Pancho Amat.
