Florida Orchestra Plans Cultural Exchange with Cuba

Havana, Jun 4. -The Florida Orchestra was officially approved to participate in a "multiyear" cultural exchange program with Cuba, beginning Sept. 26-29 with a concert by a wind quintet in Havana, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

The quintet, made up of principal musicians from the Tampa-based orchestra, will also give master classes to Cubans as the first of a series of exchanges with the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba, the Times reported in an article published this week.

The goal is for the full orchestra to perform in Cuba by the 2012-2013 season, the first visit by a professional U.S. orchestra since 1999, when the Milwaukee Symphony played there, the Times article said.

As a boost to this effort, Tampa International Airport was recently added to the list of U.S. airports authorized for flights to the island, the paper noted.

The orchestra task force for going to Cuba is headed by Jose Valiente, a Tampa accountant who hails from the town of Rincon, outside Havana and who went to the United States with his father as a 12-year-old in 1962, the article said.

Valiente, who returned to Cuba for the first time last year as part of a Tampa Bay business group, sees the orchestra's venture as "just another way to get people to talk to each other. Music is the universal language that can bring people together," the article said.

As part of this exchange, the Florida Orchestra plans to collect instruments and accessories, such as reeds, to donate to the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory in Havana; music director Stefan Sanderling has been invited to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba; and Enrique Perez Mesa, music director of the Cuban orchestra, is scheduled to conduct the Florida Orchestra, the Times reported. (Prensa Latina)