Administratively, Cuba is divided into 15 provinces and one special municipality. The current structure has been in place since August 2010, when the then-La Habana Province was divided into Artemisa Province and Mayabeque Province.
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.
Omara Portuondo Peláez is a Cuban singer and dancer. A founding member of the popular vocal group Cuarteto d'Aida, Portuondo has collaborated with many important Cuban musicians during her long career, including Julio Gutiérrez, Juanito Márquez and Chucho Valdés. Although primarily known for her rendition of boleros, she has recorded in a wide range of styles from jazz to son cubano. Since 1996, she has been part of the Buena Vista Social Club project, touring extensively and recording several albums with the ensemble. She won a Latin Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Tropical Album in 2009, a Latin Grammy Award for Best Traditional Tropical Album in 2023, a Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, and she received three Grammy Award nominations in 2019 and a nomination in 2024.
Orquesta Aragón is a Cuban musical band formed on 30 September 1939, by Orestes Aragón Cantero in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The band originally had the name Ritmica 39, then Ritmica Aragón before settling on its final form. Though they did not create the Cha-cha-cha, they were arguably the best charanga in Cuba during the 1950s and 1960s. Their trade-marks included high-class instrumentalists playing in tight ensemble style, and rhythmical innovations which kept their sound up to date. Over the years they progressed from their start as a danzoneria to play a wider variety of styles, danzón, then cha-cha-cha, then onda-cha, pachanga and son fusions. They still perform today, based in Havana.
EGREM is the national record label of Cuba. It is headquartered in Centro Habana, where its main record studios operate. It was founded in 1964 after the nationalization of the Cuban music industry, absorbing the assets of Panart. EGREM had a monopoly on music production activities from 1964 until the late 1980s when independent labels reemerged. EGREM's archive comprises "the most extensive catalog of Cuban music in the world".
Luis Eduardo Aute Gutiérrez was a Spanish musician, singer, composer, and film director.
Enrique Jorrín was a Cuban charanga violinist, composer and music director. He is considered the inventor of the cha-cha-chá, a popular style of ballroom music derived from danzón.
Cha-cha-chá is a genre of Cuban music. It has been a popular dance music which developed from the Danzón-mambo in the early 1950s, and became widely popular throughout the world.
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.
Cuban folk music includes a variety of traditional folk music of Cuba, and has been influenced by the Spanish and the African culture as well as the remaining indigenous population of the Caribbean.
Conjunto Chappottín, also known as Chappottín y sus Estrellas, is a Cuban son conjunto from Havana. It was founded in 1950 by trumpeter Félix Chappottín, pianist Lilí Martínez, singer Miguelito Cuní and other members of Arsenio Rodríguez's conjunto, which was partially disbanded after his departure to the US. Currently, the group is directed by Jesús Ángel Chappottín Coto, the grandson of Félix Chappottín.
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.
Descemer Bueno is a Cuban singer, songwriter, and record producer. His first professional gigs were playing bass with Cuban troubadour Santiago Feliú.
Roberto Carcassés is a Cuban jazz pianist. He was born on May 19, 1972, in Havana, Cuba. He has collaborated with many musicians, such as Chucho Valdés, Changuito, Wynton Marsalis, George Benson, and Descemer Bueno. He is the bandleader of the Interactivo collective.
Roberto Urbay is a Cuban concert pianist and piano professor.
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.
Wilma Alba Cal is a Cuban composer of contemporary classical music. Her work has been recognized in several competitions in Cuba organized by National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), Instituto Superior de Arte, Asociación Hermanos Saíz and Instituto Cubano de la Música. Her catalog includes chamber, choir, electroacoustic and orchestral music, in addition to soundtracks for theatre and audiovisual works.
Leonardo Torres Álvarez known professionally as Leoni Torres, is a Cuban singer, composer and music producer. He has recorded six albums as part of his career as a soloist and has collaborated with musical figures such as Rosario Flores, Pablo Milanés, Willy Chirino, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Beatriz Luengo, Carlos Varela, Cimafunk, Francisco Céspedes, among others. He is a member of The Latin Recording Academy and his compositions have been recognized by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
Julio Brito was a Cuban musician, composer, orchestra conductor and singer. He achieved great popularity both in his native Cuba and internationally, thanks to compositions such as the guajira "El amor de mi bohío" or the world famous bolero "Mira que eres linda", interpreted by numerous artists around the world, even today. His way of describing the Cuban landscapes and his very careful lyrics earned him the nickname of "The melodic painter of Cuba".
