Aldo López-Gavilán celebrates Lecuona at Teatro Marti
The stage of the colossus of a hundred doors was decorated in celebration of its anniversary with a tribute to one of our great Cuban composers, Ernesto Lecuona.
The 140 years of the Teatro Martí, that institution of our cultural life, were recently celebrated in style and in the best way: a unique concert dedicated to the music of Ernesto Lecuona occupied the stage where so many music, theater and dance events, from Cuba and other countries, have adorned during all that time.
The pianist and composer Aldo López Gavilán gathered valuable colleagues around him, starting with his father, maestro Guido López Gavilán in front of the Camerata Música Eterna, which he founded and directs.
We must not insist too much on the importance of Lecuona in the field of music, not only Cuban but also far beyond; Suffice it to say that he is perhaps the most universal of our creators in the pentagram, and of this in terms of cinema, opera, theater, dance…
Lecuona is appreciated above all for his contributions to the piano melodicism of the 20th century, for his incursions into the main African and Spanish roots of our identity through songs, instrumentals and more complex genres such as zarzuela or film soundtracks, which add up to more than 850 scores, where the Caribbean also beats, but all with such a Creole stamp that it is impossible not to identify the island essence in its skits, dances, creoles, whims or boleros, no matter how much they were wrapped in foreign forms and rhythms.
The multiple facets of someone who is undoubtedly one of the essentials, were recreated with enjoyment and breadth by Aldo and his guests in the concert we are reviewing. With the admirable energy and fingering that he communicates to the keys, the concert artist shone alone in La mulata , in the medley on several of the author’s songs, or in Gitaner í as , where he breathed jazzy accents, lucky glissandos and creative improvisations, as well as the pieces of Afro-Cuban and Hispanic matrix.
Together with the cohesive ensemble led by his father, other expressions were sounded that are defined by their titles, such as Danza lucum í or Conga de midnight , which knew how to exploit and transmit the rich rhythmic arsenal impregnated in them by Lecuona.
The singable came in the well-pitched voices of the soprano Samantha Correa or the tenor Iré Daniel Jiménez, alone or united in that wonder that is Always in my heart .
There was an opportunity for a more popular side with Annys Batista and the sonero William Borrego, who also sang a duet, amid more contemporary arrangements that demonstrated the validity and closeness of the musician.
The final moments of union between pianist and orchestra raised the temperature with true classics of the Lecuón repertoire, such as Malague ñ a -with the brilliant performance of the dancer Analía Feal Benavides, from the Spanish Ballet of Cuba- and La Comparsa .
It is worth highlighting the participation of virtuoso musicians in specific moments of certain works, which enriched their projection: the clarinetist Alejandro Calzadilla; Alejandro Águila and Jesús Estrada on percussion.
Both the lighting design that generated chromatic atmospheres of great expressiveness and beauty, and the effectiveness of the audiovisual complement (photos and scenes of the maestro in various stages of his life) also contributed to the success of this concert in which we all raised an imaginary glass to the health of the important coliseum that celebrated another year of life, and of whom also reaffirmed through the summoned musicians its immovable place in the spiritual magma of the nation: Ernesto Lecuona.
Photos: Adrián Juan Espinosa