The music of Cuba, including its instruments, performance, and dance, comprises a large set of unique traditions influenced mostly by west African and European music. Due to the syncretic nature of most of its genres, Cuban music is often considered one of the richest and most influential regional music in the world. For instance, the son cubano merges an adapted Spanish guitar (tres), melody, harmony, and lyrical traditions with Afro-Cuban percussion and rhythms. Almost nothing remains of the original native traditions, since the native population was exterminated in the 16th century.
Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré Gutiérrez, better known as Benny Moré, was a Cuban singer, bandleader and songwriter. Due to his fluid tenor voice and his great expressivity, he was known variously as "El Bárbaro del Ritmo" and "El Sonero Mayor". Moré was a master of the soneo – the art of vocal improvisation in son cubano – and many of his tunes developed this way. He often took part in controversias with other singers, including Cheo Marquetti and Joseíto Fernández. Apart from son cubano, Moré was a popular singer of guarachas, cha cha cha, mambo, son montuno, and boleros.
Cinema arrived in Cuba at the beginning of the 20th century. Before the Cuban Revolution of 1959, about 80 full-length films were produced in Cuba. Most of these films were melodramas. Following the revolution, Cuba entered what is considered the "Golden age" of Cuban cinema.
Amparanoia is the stage name of Spanish singer/guitarist Amparo Sánchez which combines her first name with the word 'paranoia'. It was also the name of the band she fronted from 1996 to 2006. Her debut album, El Poder de Machín, has been described as "bright, exuberant... with a heavy Latin influence", whereas the 2002-released Somos Viento has been called "a more acoustic blend of Cuban and reggae forms".
Habana Abierta is a Cuban band. They are a member of a generation of composers, musicians, sculptors, authors, actors, etc. which emerged in the early 90s with its own identity in Havana, even though some of their creations had already been well known for some years in the island's cultural circles.
Benito Zambrano, is an awarded Spanish screenwriter and film director. His film Habana Blues was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. He studied at Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television in San Antonio de Los Baños, Cuba.
Juan Carlos Tabío was a Cuban film director and screenwriter. His film Strawberry and Chocolate (1994), which he co-directed with Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, won a Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 44th Berlin International Film Festival. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He collaborated with director and close friend Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and actors Jorge Perugorría, Vladimir Cruz and Mirta Ibarra in several films.
Trova is a style of Cuban popular music originating in the 19th century. Trova was created by itinerant musicians known as trovadores who travelled around Cuba's Oriente province, especially Santiago de Cuba, and earned their living by singing and playing the guitar. According to nueva trova musician Noel Nicola, Cuban trovadors sang original songs or songs written by contemporaries, accompanied themselves on guitar, and aimed to feature music that had a poetic sensibility. This definition fits best the singers of boleros, and less well the Afrocubans singing funky sones or even guaguancós and abakuá. It rules out, perhaps unfairly, singers who accompanied themselves on the piano.
Jorge Perugorría Rodríguez is a Cuban actor, film director and painter. He is well known for his part as Diego in Strawberry and Chocolate (original title in Spanish Fresa y chocolate. He recently acted in Steven Soderbergh's Che, with Benicio del Toro and in the original Netflix series Four Seasons in Havana. He lives in Santa Fe, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, with his wife Elsa Maria Fuentes de La Paz and their four children.
The Survivors is a 1979 Cuban drama film directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. It was entered into the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. Los Sobrevivientes was preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in conjunction with the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográfica, in 2017.
Descemer Bueno is a Cuban singer, songwriter, and record producer. His first professional gigs were playing bass with Cuban troubadour Santiago Feliú.
Kelvis Ochoa is a Cuban author, composer, and singer.
7 Days in Havana is a 2012 Spanish-language anthology film. Set during a week in the Cuban capital Havana, the film features one segment for each day, each segment directed by a different filmmaker. The directors are Julio Medem, Laurent Cantet, Juan Carlos Tabío, Benicio del Toro, Gaspar Noé, Pablo Trapero and Elia Suleiman. The screenplay was written by the Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura Fuentes. The film is a co-production of companies in Spain, France and Cuba. It was shot on location in Havana.
The guitar was the first instrument that was heard in Cuba after the conch horns, flutes and drums that the original aborigines used to play; as it was documented by Spanish chroniclers such as Bernal Díaz del Castillo. Through the centuries, the guitar has continued to be one of the most important and cherished instruments in Cuba, both in the practice of popular music as well as in the classical music tradition. Founded by renowned professors such as Clara Romero, Isaac Nicola, Clara (Cuqui) Nicola, Carlos Molina, and Marta Cuervo Riverón, the Cuban guitar school has acquired an excellent international reputation since the 20th century, represented by important instrumentalists and composers such as Leo Brouwer, Carlos Molina, José Rey de la Torre, Juan Antonio Mercadal and Joaquín Clerch, among many others.
Mercedes Valdés Granit, better known as Merceditas Valdés, was a Cuban singer who specialized in Afro-Cuban traditional music. Under the aegis of ethnomusicologists Fernando Ortiz and Obdulio Morales, Valdés helped popularize Afro-Cuban music throughout Latin America. In 1949, she became one of the first female Santería singers to be recorded. Her debut album was released at the start of the 1960s, when the Cuban government nationalized the record industry. She then went on hiatus before making a comeback in the 1980s with a series of albums entitled Aché, in collaboration with artists such as Frank Emilio Flynn and rumba ensemble Yoruba Andabo. She also appeared in Jane Bunnett's Spirits of Havana and continued performing until her death in 1996.
Reynaldo Agustín Miravalles de la Luz, known as Reinaldo Miravalles, was a Cuban actor residing in Miami.
Last Days in Havana is a 2016 Cuban drama film directed and co-written by Fernando Pérez. It was screened in the Berlinale Special section at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2017 it won the Havana Star Prize for Best Film (Fiction) at the 18th Havana Film Festival New York.
Severo Muguerza (1883–1952?) was a composer of Spanish, Basque, Neapolitan zarzuelas and operettas. He was born in San Sebastián, Spain, and lived his later years in Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico.
