Alain Pérez conquering Miami

March 8, 2021

The multifaceted Cuban musician Alain Pérez, based on the Island, will be one of the protagonists of the fourth edition of Global Cuba Fest, which already began on March 6 in the American city of Miami.

The event, organized by FUNDarte and Miami Light Project, takes place at the North Beach Bandshell venue (Miami Beach), where other important Cuban musicians will perform such as trombonist Julio Montalvo and drummer Dafnis Prieto, instrumentalists of great caliber in the jazz circuit.

Alain Pérez's concert with Montalvo, which was supposed to close the festival last year, was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and is now announced as one of the main attractions of 2021 of an event that annually brings together the vanguard of musical creation from the Island and other artistic expressions, as well as other accomplished musicians from around the world.

The new edition of Global Cuba Fest "takes on a symbolic and hopeful character, since the concert of Alain Pérez and Julio Montalvo, scheduled as the festival's closing in March 2020, returns now after 12 months of waiting to please an audience eager to delight themselves once again with live and in-person music," said Ever Chávez, executive director of FUNDarte, to the Spanish news agency Efe.

"The conception of the show has changed, but it is a dream come true," commented, for his part, Tony Martínez, marketing director of the festival's organizing entity.

Alain Pérez is a versatile musician with great capacity to divide himself and interpret various genres and rhythms such as jazz, flamenco and Cuban popular music. His versatility has led him to work with music icons such as Spanish Paco de Lucía and Cuban Celia Cruz, and to work with transcendent groups from the Island such as Irakere or Van Van. With several albums to his credit, he currently directs his own orchestra, with a very particular mark on Cuba's musical scene.

Meanwhile, Dafnis Prieto is one of the Cuban jazz musicians who has had a high-caliber career in the United States for several years. His 2018 album Back to the sunset won a Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album and achieved wide recognition among specialized critics. The drummer, who will perform in Miami with his band, the Dafnis Prieto Sextet, has maintained a close relationship with his colleagues on the Island and has performed at the Havana Jazz Festivals.

For his part, Julio Montalvo is considered one of the most relevant Cuban trombonists, and has been widely identified for his fusions between jazz and the African heritage of his country's music. With a work situated within the parameters of latin jazz, he has recorded, among others, the album Madre Tierra, nominated for the 2010 Cubadisco Awards for Best Jazz Album. At Global Cuba Fest he will perform with his group The Cuban Collective.

FUNDarte was created with the purpose of organizing concerts and shows of music, theater, dance, film and visual arts, which promote the cultural diversity of Florida, Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain. Furthermore, among its main purposes to promote talents from the most alternative scenes of the continent and artists with little publicity among Miami's varied audience.