Cuban and Galician rhythms to celebrate Havana on its anniversary

Havana, Oct 17.- After a hundred concerts and as a gift to this capital on its 500th anniversary, Galician singer Roi Casal presents the show ‘Son galego, son cubano,’ at the Alicia Alonso Grand Theater of Havana.

 

The concert, including works from his homonymous album, winner of the Cubadisco Award in 2014, is the result of the joint efforts of writer Xose Neira Vilas and the musician, and includes guest appearances by Cuban instrumentalists.

According to Casal, ‘Son galego, Son cubano’ is part of a more comprehensive project that makes visible the Galician influence on this city, based on audiovisual creation, literature, history, visual arts, among other manifestations.

The album stands out for its way of harmonizing the traditional rhythms of Galicia and Cuba, and its peculiar symbolism on evoking distinctive elements of the Galician identity, such as the anthem, flag and Academy of the Language, all founded in Havana.

As part of this tribute to the ‘Wonder City,’ the final part of a documentary by journalist and director Natasha Vasquez will be filmed, work on which has been ongoing since 2015, to bring together in images and sound the different stagings of the show, curiosities related to the production process and the relations between the two countries.

The premiere is planned for the beginning of 2020, and according to its producers, the documentary will hit screens simultaneously in Galicia and the Caribbean nation.

The presentation constitutes a cultural platform to which are added elements that bring to the surface the common history between Galicians and Cubans, such as the book ‘Gallegas en Cuba,’ by researcher, essayist and professor Julio Cesar Gonzalez-Pages.

The edition gathers the history of a group of Galician women who founded Havana’s Hijas de Galicia Hospital in 1912, which still functions today as an institution specialized in maternal and child care, and which was the first non-governmental organization that welcomed women from all social strata at the time. (Prensa Latina)