CubaPLUS Magazine

Jazz Plaza returns to Cuba with new features

By: CubaPLUS Magazine
Oct 21, 2024
Jazz Plaza returns to Cuba with new features

The International Jazz Plaza Festival 2025, from January 26 to February 2, 2025, returns to celebrate its 40th edition with new musical and visual arts features, according to its organizers. One of the great surprises is the poster made especially for the contest by the renowned Cuban painter Zaida del Río, National Prize for Visual Arts 2023, whose originality lies in the fact that she is the first woman to distinguish this festival with her work, it was announced at a press conference.

With this image comes this event in which the freedom and energy of the genre come together, in the creative and spiritual mixture of the artist. Her painting, full as always of a force of nuances, will accompany the supports of the event along with the traditional logo with the iconic neon lights.

The festival's president, Víctor Rodríguez, referred to the fact that this year the event had a new venue added in the Cuban city of Santa Clara, apart from our capital and the eastern city of Santiago. I think that this territory in the central region earned this merit, Rodríguez clarified, due to the history of music cultivated there, above all, what its musical movement has had to do with jazz, he specified.

If we only think that Bobby Carcassés, although he was born in Jamaica, was registered in Villa Clara, there are plenty of justifications to celebrate the event in that beautiful city starting this year, he recalled. In this edition, a group of artists who celebrate their anniversary in 2024 will also be recognized, especially, we will pay tribute to one of the greatest Cuban artists of all time, the maestro Frank Fernández, added the festival's president.

Regarding another of the novelties present at this International Jazz Plaza Festival 2025, Rodríguez highlighted the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Children's Company "La Colmenita", which will have two concerts within this jazz festival, something innovative.

Cuban cinema will also have its space in which its tireless work for 65 years will be highlighted. We say that it is the Jazz Festival, but it is the pretext to participate in an enormous show in which we involve different manifestations, he pointed out. Several concerts will be held and more than 150 foreign and very high-level groups have already been confirmed, he added.

During this edition, the 40th anniversary medal of the Jazz Plaza will be awarded and Rodríguez explained that not only will outstanding musicians in the movement of the genre be awarded, but also producers, promoters and institutions related to this style will be honored. The extensive program of the International Jazz Plaza Festival 2025 includes photography and visual arts exhibitions, confirmed the organizers.

A whirlwind of artistic expressions will take over Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Santa Clara at the beginning of the new year, which enhances the vision of the event that aims to host more than 200 concerts, theoretical events and spaces for exchange in the music industry.

The closing of the activities for the 20th anniversary of the Leonardo Acosta In Memoriam International Colloquium are also part of the agenda. The celebration will feature the musical theme "Jazz Plaza 40", composed for this edition by the renowned pianist and artistic director of the event, Roberto Fonseca.

The usual venues will return, such as the Karl Marx Theater among the main spaces, all of which is reason enough to look back at what has been experienced, remember memorable moments, endearing names, and demonstrate vivacity, growth and durability, the organizers said in a press conference.
(Taken from Prensa Latina)

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