Jeff Kaliss on July 20, 2021

When we connected with Cuban pianist-composer Aldo López-Gavilán last week, he was being driven by his local host, arts patron Rick Swig, to a rehearsal for Festival Napa Valley’s Novack Concert for Kids, at an amphitheater at the Culinary Institute of America’s Copia site in downtown Napa. López-Gavilán, featured at the festival over several years and in more of this year’s events, would be performing three winning compositions by Napa Valley public school teens and would also accompany the young audience’s experience of composer-vocalist Nia Imani Franklin, a former Miss America, singing Puccini’s “Quando m’en vo.”

The 41-year-old Havana resident is well acquainted with the delights of youthful exposure to music. Raised in Cuba by esteemed conductor Guido López-Gavilán and the late concert pianist Teresita Junco, alongside his 6-year-older brother and violinist Ilmar, young Aldo started chording on the family piano at age 4 and began studying music in school, as is the case with many Cubans, at 7. A Danny Kaye International Children’s Award, created by UNICEF, had him performing an original composition in Holland when he was 11, and the next year he made his professional debut on piano with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Matanzas.

López-Gavilán matured his improvisational skills alongside his classical studies and appeared at the Havana International Jazz Festival; he was declared “simply a genius, a star” by Cuban jazz titan Chucho Valdés. López-Gavilán has recorded a half-dozen albums covering his multi-genre repertoire and has toured globally, sometimes in the company of the Harlem String Quartet, where his brother Ilmar is principal violinist. His infectious exuberance and romanticism are showcased in both his compositions and in performances of his and others’ works.

The longed-for reunion of Aldo with Ilmar, who has long lived in New York, is celebrated in the documentary film Los Hermanos, directed by Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider and screened as part of Festival Napa Valley, as well as earlier this year by San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club. It will be seen on PBS stations in September. López-Gavilán is fluent in English, some accent and idiosyncratic usage extant.

I understand you’ll be doing a Q&A with the kids following the music today. They might be a bit curious about, and envious of, your early start in Cuba.

I guess that’s true, though I know you have music schools for kids.

When Rick and I were kids, we had more in the way of music education in our public schools. Now we have the wonderful Crowden School in Berkeley and the pre-college program at the San Francisco Conservatory, but they’re both private. Is it public in Cuba?

Absolutely. In Cuba, there are zero private schools.

Some Cuban musicians I’ve interviewed told me that though Western classical music was maintained after the communists took control in 1959, that other genres, like American jazz and pop, were repressed or discouraged in your country.

Those musicians were probably referring to the time before I was born. I’ve been able to be surrounded by all kinds of music, including hip-hop. But in Cuba, jazz is way more popular than many other genres of American music, especially because of the [Havana Jazz] Festival running every year [inaugurated in 1978]. And there are fusions with Cuban dance forms, and other styles.

You appeared at that festival with Chucho Valdés. Wow! Were you onstage with him?

I was 14, and we actually had a two-piano duet, with members of the legendary band Irakere [founded by Valdés in 1973]. And I performed, together with Chucho, one of my earlier compositions, called “Black Magic.”

Early on, did you find yourself composing in classical forms or jazz or some kind of fusion?

It was a combination. In general, my way of composing has a lot to do with improvisation, with jazz techniques and phrasing, harmonies. But the structure is somewhat close to concert music, meaning it has solid classic structure. It’s all written down, and it should be played as written. But when I’m performing, there are substantial parts with improvisation. [He’s also improvised during Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.]

Can we talk about your piece Emporium, which you’re performing later here, with Festival Orchestra Napa? Tell me about the piece and how it sits within the genres.

Let’s start by saying that this is a piano concerto, with full orchestra and piano solo and the classic structure: three movements. But of course, it’s very influenced by jazz and by Cuban and African culture. The whole thing is based on a theme that I dedicated to my daughters [Adriana and Andrea, with his wife, conductor Daiana Garcia] for their birthday, when they were 9. I improvised this theme [formed on an alluring rippling ninth chord] in the middle of the night, just to give them a surprise. [Adriana and Andrea both won the top award last year in the Pequeño Pianista category of the inaugural Concurso Latinoamericano de Piano.] Later, I started to play what would be the first movement with my jazz trio. It was more like a jazz-structured piece, where I could play the theme, then improvise around that. Later on, I decided to orchestrate it [as a concerto], because I was invited by the late great conductor Joel Revzen to perform at Classical Tahoe [in 2017, where López-Gavilán also appeared with Joshua Bell and in jazz settings]. You find that main theme from the first movement throughout the whole entire work, but with variations. I didn’t tell you that my daughters are twins, so they are always told that they’re so alike, but in a lot of details they are very personalized, and I tried to achieve that in my work.

Do tell us more. Will this piece be recorded?

We are planning to record it properly next year. The second movement is more lyrical, it tries to blend two different styles that I think are connected. One is the Black church music, like spirituals, the other is what we call in Cuba the vieja trova tradicional, beautiful romantic songs with amazing poetic lyrics, always describing love and beauty. I tried to embrace the idea of uniting the cultures. The final movement has more dramatic, unsettling rhythms, changing keys, more jazz elements [and reggaeton]. It’s very exciting but also carries the beautiful things from the first movement.

Any place for Cuban percussion in the orchestra?

There is not. I try hard to make it more universal. That’s one of the goals of my career: to not try to impose my culture over the true message you want to send, which is the beauty and deepness of emotional and spiritual language.

And the love of family seems a standard for you. Last night, the Festival presented the movie about you and your brother Ilmar, Los Hermanos. For those of us who haven’t seen it yet, tell us a bit about it and your take on it.

First of all, I’m very happy that the film was shown here, in the Cameo Cinema [in St. Helena]. I want to especially give thanks to my friend Rick Swig, who was the mind behind this. It’s hard for me to describe, because it’s about me and my family, but it’s basically about love to the family, love to music. And it describes many events of our lives, and how we got to reunite in the U.S., to tour and perform in different cities of this country, with my brother and the Harlem Quartet.

Were you two separated for a long time?

He went to study his violin in Russia when he was 14 years old and I was only 8, so he left home. Then he studied in Madrid, then came to California, and he finished his studies at the Manhattan School of Music. He basically stayed here, made a life and a family. He would go to Cuba to visit our family every year, but he was only visiting, we were not living together.

Does the documentary talk about the lifestyle differences between the two countries?

A little bit. In a very nice way, though. It’s all covered in love.

What’s been your reaction to the news over the past couple of weeks about protests in Cuba? Are American media looking for another way to make communism look bad?

First of all, I will say that I am very sad to see my people suffering so much violence between them. The people of Cuba have suffered scarcity for a long time. And, of course, there are different interests from the Cuban government and the U.S. government, especially in the Florida community, which I don’t want to talk about, because I don’t have full knowledge of that thing. What I can say is that I wish this leads to a better solution for our country.

The multi-awarded documentary The Brothers / Los Hermanos about the two talented Cuban musicians Ilmar and Aldo López-Gavilán Junco had its national release in the US on May 14th and immediately captured the attention of the media with positive reviews in major outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Miami Herald among many others.

The film is also available online for streaming on-demand and has been invited to premiere in Canada at the very prestigious Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema on Thursday, June 3.

“A moving documentary with generous amounts of music…
Electrifying musical collaborations!”
-Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times

“This endearing documentary is an Oscar-caliber film
for the family and one not to be missed!”
-Jeffrey Lyons, WCBS News Radio

“A joyful U.S. tour featuring Aldo’s blood-pumping compositions that meld jazz, classical and Latin music.” -KQED, San Francisco Public Media

“Exquisite – so much poetry, heart, and exemplary craft.
The editing is just sublime.” -Rob Epstein, Two-time Oscar Winner

“Expertly and beautifully paced, like a great piece of music.”
-Joshua Bell, Celebrated American Violinist

“This is an Oscar-caliber film for the family and one not to be missed.”

-Jeffrey Lyons, WCBS Radio

 “Expertly crafted and beautifully paced, like a great piece of music.”

 –Joshua Bell, violinist

“The compelling tale of a family disrupted by geopolitics.”
–Peter Keough, The Boston Globe

Virtuoso Afro-Cuban-born brothers—American violinist Ilmar and Cuban pianist Aldo— live on opposite sides of a geopolitical chasm a half century wide. LOS HERMANOS/THE BROTHERS tracks their parallel lives, poignant reunion, and electrifying first performances across the U.S., in a nuanced, often startling view of estranged nations through the lens of music and family.

Featuring a genre-bending score composed by Cuban Aldo Lopez-Gavilan performed with his American brother, Ilmar, and with guest appearances by maestro Joshua Bell and the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet.

LOS HERMANOS/THE BROTHERS
www.hermanosbrothersfilm.info

Duante Beddingfield for Detroit Free Press

The music of Cuba will be front and center at Pontiac’s Flagstar Strand Theatre Saturday when the Chamber Music Society of Detroit presents the Gavilán Brothers live in concert.

The Cuban-born virtuoso musicians, violinist Ilmar Gavilán and pianist Aldo López-Gavilán, will perform an evening of tunes composed by López-Gavilán and culled from their 2019 album “Brothers,” a flowing, genre-melding project that pulls in elements of classical, Latin jazz, and Afro-Cuban styles.

Both brothers displayed musical talent from the beginning, and by age 14, Ilmar had outgrown his teachers in Cuba and was sent to the Soviet Union for advanced study. He eventually found chamber work in the United States, where he has lived for 20 years while teaching and playing with the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet. Strained U.S.-Cuban relations meant that the siblings did not see each other for decades, even as Aldo became renowned as one of the island’s finest pianists.

When President Barack Obama relaxed travel restrictions to and from Cuba in late 2014, the brothers believed they might be able to achieve their dream of recording together. Ilmar and his family visited Havana for the first time in many years, and Aldo traveled to the United States to tour and record with Ilmar.

These trips were filmed by documentarians Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider, including an October 2016 Detroit residency by the brothers and the Harlem Quartet that was hosted by the Chamber Music Society. These scenes form the spine of “Los Hermanos – The Brothers,” an emotional, feature-length documentary that will be released nationwide on May 14.

Soon after their Detroit visit, things changed for the brothers. President Donald Trump revived strict rules on travel between the U.S. and Cuba, and relations between the countries grew tense again. “Los Hermanos” keeps the viewer aware of where things are on the timeline of history through onscreen graphics and audio from presidential speeches.

Jarmel, the film’s co-director, said during a call from San Francisco: “When you film real life, you’re only moving forward in linear motion. You can trackback later on, but as doc makers, we can never compete with the news cycle because every issue is constantly changing. Even during the 18 months we were filming, our relations with Cuba changed significantly. Two times.”

Ilmar Gavilán, speaking by phone from New York about U.S.-Cuba relations, said: “I have been in this situation on and off for over 25 years. I do think the only real change is when Congress passes something lifting the embargo, so that it is not depending on who is in power. I’m very optimistic by nature, but when it comes to this, I think I’m slightly more cautious.”

He’s more cheerful, however, when he returns to the topic of playing music with his brother.

“It makes me feel very complete spiritually to be able to do this. … When you take the feelings that are associated with this, the history and the family and the hope — you know, that kind of satisfaction is very rare. It makes everything else in life feel like minutiae.”

On Thursday, two days before the Pontiac concert, the Freep Film Festival and Chamber Music Society of Detroit will partner to present a virtual premiere for “Los Hermanos.” It will be available at no extra charge to concert ticket holders beginning at 7:30 p.m. and will be accessible on demand through midnight Sunday.

Immediately after the Thursday screening, a free and publicly available talk session will stream live on the Detroit Free Press Facebook page. It will feature the brothers, the filmmakers, Chamber Music Society President Steve Wogamon, regional arts and music critic Mark Stryker, and festival representatives.

Saturday night’s duo concert can also be viewed virtually by ticket holders who prefer streaming to attending the Flagstar Strand’s socially distanced performance.

Wogamon said the Chamber Music Society and venue staff got excellent practical experience with social distancing protocols during a live performance last weekend.

“Everyone has to wear a mask, whether they’re vaccinated or not,” he said, “and the mask has to stay on for the whole concert. We do a temperature check at the door, and we’re seating in every other row, with each party separated by three empty seats. We leave the first three rows empty so the artists can take their masks off, so there’s a good 30 feet of separation between the artists and the first audience members.”

As for Gavilán Brothers, Wogamon expresses nothing but awe.

“The thing about Aldo,” he said, “is he’s known as a jazz pianist and composer and is really, really respected in the Cuban jazz genre, but he is every bit at home as a classical pianist. In the film, it shows him playing Rachmaninoff’s third piano concerto, which is one of the half-dozen most difficult pieces in the world for the instrument. … And the Harlem Quartet became Chick Corea’s go-to whenever he needed a string quartet, so you can’t ask for better than Ilmar on the violin.

“There’s the electricity of not just their abilities on the instruments and their passion for the music,” Wogamon said, “but the electricity of these two brothers being able, finally, after so many, many years, to play together independently at the height of their powers.”

Original Article Here

Havana, April 24, 2021.

“Brothers”, the first album of the duo integrated by talented Cuban musicians Aldo and Ilmar López-Gavilán, has been nominated in the Instrumental Music category for the 2020 – 2021 Cubadisco Awards. This XXIV edition of the International Fair of Cuban Discography will be held online from May 15 to 23 and will have Spain as a guest country.

Even though each of the López-Gavilán brothers has a solid and fruitful musical career, this is the first time that they have collaborated together on a recording project. Ilmar left Cuba at a very young age to study the violin in the former USSR and later won other scholarships to do higher studies in Spain and the United States, where he has lived for several years. His ascending career includes, in addition to getting a Doctorate in Music, numerous presentations in hundreds of the most prestigious auditoriums in the world, and in 2001 he was the winner of the Sphinx Competition, which earned him performing as a soloist in front of a score of US symphony orchestras. He is the founder and director of the renowned string quartet “Harlem Quartet”, with which he has recorded alongside prominent figures such as John Pattituci, Winton Marsalis and Chick Corea, with the latter the quartet obtained a GRAMMY in 2012.

Aldo, for his part, has been developing his career as a pianist and composer from a very young age, obtaining numerous awards inside and outside of Cuba. He had just finished his higher studies at the prestigious Trinity College in London and was already performing with important orchestras such as the Cuban National Symphony, the New England Conservatory Youth Symphony, the Bogota Philharmonic, the Sao Paulo Jazz + Orchestra and the Orchestra Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony of Venezuela, the latter under the direction of Maestro Claudio Abbado. To date, he has performed as a soloist with more than ten prestigious orchestras in the US, and his discography includes 13 albums, of which 5 have received nominations and awards in previous editions of Cubadisco, including “El Ocaso De La Hormiga y El Elefante.”, which was the winner of the Cubadisco Grand Prize in 2000.

During the opening to the cultural exchange that the administration of President Barack Obama led, the brothers were able for the first time to make an extensive musical tour throughout the United States, and Aldo also made other important collaborations with American musicians such as Dave Matthews, Jackson Browne, Byron Stripling , among others. One of these collaborations resulted in a live television concert (Live at Lincoln Center: Seasons of Cuba), led by the famous violinist Joshua Bell, and broadcast and produced by the PBS network, which was nominated for the EMMY Awards in 2017.

The album “Brothers”, a family project dreamed of for decades, finally found its moment of gestation in New York in July 2019, after several months of touring, and was recorded at Oktaven Studios. This phonogram includes 10 songs, all authored by Aldo, and with masterful arrangements for piano and violin by both brothers.

This album musically crystallizes the family, artistic and spiritual union of Ilmar and Aldo, and was in turn the culmination of a documentary entitled “Los Hermanos / The Brothers”, made by American producers and directors Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider, which has been presented to date in twelve festivals in the US, recently broadcast by PBS with a global reach in the North American country and presented by the prestigious Carnegie Hall in April. The feature film emphasizes through music that, despite the separation and geopolitical differences of the countries where the two brothers reside, the art and feelings that unite them do not have and will never have borders.

After a long pause imposed by the global health crisis, Aldo and Ilmar met again this week in the US to continue promoting their CD “Brothers”, which will soon be available on digital platforms. The tour will include concerts (virtually or with a small audience) in cities such as Detroit, Michigan, Napa, Chicago, Minnesota, New York, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, among others.

Buy the album Brothers here now

For the 2021-22 season and beyond, Harlem Quartet will once again be sharing the stage with famed Cuban pianist/composer Aldo López-Gavilán—younger brother of the quartet’s first violinist, Ilmar Gavilán—in a collaboration rekindling the joyously energetic concert experience that these five musicians brought to such cities as Seattle, Phoenix, Calgary, Washington, Houston, Denver, Tucson, Rockport (MA), and Chautauqua (NY) in the years between 2015 and 2018.

López-Gavilán, praised for his “dazzling technique and rhythmic fire” in the Seattle Times, and dubbed a “formidable virtuoso” by The Times of London, excels in both the classical and jazz worlds, and his concerts with the quartet showcase scintillating chemistry in a broad variety of repertoire. Program offerings will include not only string quintets from the classical canon but American jazz, bossa nova, and, of course, original compositions from López-Gavilán that take audiences on a journey through Cuba’s myriad musical traditions.

It is expected that some venues booking the quintet will pair a concert with a screening of the new documentary Los Hermanos / The Brothers, which tells the story of Aldo and Ilmar, tracking their shared childhood, their momentous first performances together, and their parallel lives as musicians. A Patchwork Films production by Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider, it includes concert footage of the quintet, a genre-bending score composed by Aldo, and guest appearances by such legendary musicians as Joshua Bell, Smokey Robinson, and Dave Matthews. Los Hermanos is screening at film festivals worldwide and will be nationally broadcast on PBS in the fall of 2021.

For Booking Inquiries about the Quintet, please contact us here

La Habana, November 5^th, 2019

The third edition of the Classic Havana event, to be held from November 10th to 24th, promises an exceptional encounter with the best of that kind in Cuba and the world, as announced in a press conference.

Thanks to the promotion and coordination management of its general director, pianist Marcos Madrigal, Havana will celebrate its 500th anniversary with maximum exponents of that music in a varied and rich program. The event is organized by the Esteban Salas Musical Heritage Cabinet, from the Office of the Historian of the City (OHC).

The interaction of classical music with contemporary Cuban music is one of the main objectives planned for this occasion. The important classical chamber repertoire that distinguishes the festival will be intertwined with everything that is happening in our musical and cultural reality in general, Marcos said.

Aldo López-Gavilán Junco will be the composer in residence of this edition of Habana Clásica. The talented pianist will share several of his works – some as a premiere, along with other premieres of his father, Guido López-Gavilán. Several works dedicated specifically to the Festival will also be released. On November 16th, at 9:00 p.m., in the Minor Basilica of the Convent of San Francisco de Asís, a concert will be dedicated to López-Gavilán’s music. The first part will be dedicated to Stravinski, with Aldo’s performances alongside the violinist Alicia Abreu and Alejandro Calzadilla (clarinet). The second part will be a premiere of a work by Aldo.

The program, ambitious and rich so as not to lose a single one of its activities, proposes concerts, operas and presentations of dance companies, with the prominence of contemporary dance.

What is Tampa Bay? Florida Orchestra’s season opener seeks an answer

Friday’s opening night portrayed Tampa as a melting pot, delivering diverse pieces pulled from around the world. | Concert review

Music director Michael Francis leads the Florida Orchestra in the Star-Spangled Banner on Friday during the season-opening program at the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa. [JAY CRIDLIN | Tampa Bay Times]

By Jay Cridlin
Published Sep. 28

If you had to summarize Florida, and Tampa Bay especially, in just a few words, you could do worse than the three Michael Francis chose Friday night: “Eclectic and unique.”

Sure, that’s one way to put lipstick on a grouper. The Gulf Coast is a tough place to sum up, especially in the lyricless realm of classical music, where the word Margaritaville rarely comes into play.

But that was the mission of the Masterworks program opening the Florida Orchestra’s 2019-20 season, performed Friday at the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts.

Francis, the orchestra’s music director, curated a diverse global program aimed at portraying Tampa Bay as a cultural melting pot. But with no Florida composers on the program — nor even a single Gasparilla pirate shanty — how Tampa could this program really be?

It opened with George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture, which was promising, a silly, cinematic slice of Havana in the ’30s. There is no evening that can’t be enlivened through that little Latin loony tune. Just like Gershwin preferred, Francis had four percussionists (maracas, bongos, claves and a guiro) come right down front to infuse the rhythm with minty little clicks and clatters. And right off the bat, the crowd got its dose of vintage Ybor City.

Cuban pianist Aldo Lopez-Gavilan came out next to lead Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto, earning a standing ovation after just the first movement (“Two more!” a grinning Francis yelled above the crowd). He performed with superhuman dexterity, his higher keys twinkling like glass wind chimes, the fluff of his Sideshow Bob hairdo bouncing and flouncing as the force of his fingers pushed him up off the bench.

Cuban pianist Aldo Lopez-Gavilan welcomes an ovation after performing Friday with the Florida Orchestra at the
David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts. [JAY CRIDLIN | Tampa Bay Times]

Lopez-Gavilan’s Cuban heritage aside, the Grieg didn’t have much of a tonal link to Tampa. Nor, at first blush, did Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, the first of many Beethoven selections this season and next.

Leonore comes from Beethoven’s only opera, the not-widely-loved Fidelio. In spotlighting that aspect of the great composer’s life, Francis cast a light on an area often overlooked by the rest of the world — a sensation to which more than a few Tampans might relate. With its playful string volleys and Rob Smith’s faraway trumpet solo emanating from the balcony lobby, Leonore built to a furious finish, with Francis up on his toes, tuxedo tail flailing out behind him.

The night closed with numbers new and old. The new: American composer Mason Bates’ Mothership, an innovatively orchestrated piece that made creative use of percussion, harp and improvised trombone, trumpet, xylophone and E-flat clarinet solos. It sounded like the score to a sci-fi thriller. The old: Maurice Ravel’s Bolero, a slow-building cycle through variations on a theme: Sultry, whimsical, noble, exotic. Principal percussionist John Shaw deserves an Ironman medal for the dogged discipline of his 15-minute snare-drum crescendo, rising from barely perceptible taps to a crash-boom-bang finale.

So you had a Frenchman from the northern Basque (Ravel) leaning into the sound of neighboring Spain; a Brooklynite (Gershwin) borrowing from the Caribbean; a hearing-impaired German (Beethoven) dabbling in the one discipline where he wasn’t considered a master. Did it all add up to Tampa in 2019?

Look, it’s all kindling for the fire that melts the stuff in the pot. Distinctions of backgrounds and borders may not matter. Just look at Lopez-Gavilan, who, upon crushing Grieg’s Norwegian folk masterpiece, brought in yet another cross-cultural perspective, encoring with an off-book number of his own.

“I know there is a lot of history between Tampa and Havana,” Lopez-Gavilan said, introducing Espiral, a marvelously upbeat song “inspired by this relationship.”

Did it scream Tampa Bay like a Cuban with salami? Not especially. But it was eclectic and unique. And if that’s not this town in a nutshell, what is?

This article was published at:
https://www.tampabay.com/arts-entertainment/arts/stage/2019/09/28/what-is-tampa-bay-florida-orchestras-season-opener-seeks-an-answer/?fbclid=IwAR1yNu3uvGMkJXOf26GdnBHNwONj23WWvolpoCy3RBtvRFCjI7EWY8UcOW8