Carlos Faxas Valerino

He was a prominent pianist, composer, orchestrator, arranger, instrumentalist, and orchestra conductor from Cuba. An essential name in Cuba's sound landscape over more than seven decades. On February 15, 1957, he directed the recording of the Marcha del 26 de Julio at the Radio Cadena Habana studios.

He was born in Manzanillo, an eastern city in Cuba. His father was Cuba's best piano tuner, according to his son's account, and for this reason young Carlos started playing it as a hobby. He was about 7 or 8 years old when his family moved to La Habana in search of new horizons.

He was offered work at the Teatro Martí with Roberto Rodríguez's children's company in 1935, at just 14 years of age; he went to the piano and was given the sheet music for Muñeca de Cristal by Ernesto Lecuona.

He began to study music seriously, bought sheet music, and in his own way began to read, while at the same time accepting work playing with all kinds of orchestras and ensembles; he even performed with the Casino ensemble.

In 1943 he went to work at El Castillito in Varadero, at this famous resort he worked as a pianist in the accompanying orchestra for three years, while dedicating ten hours daily to studying music.

Upon returning to La Habana, he joined as a pianist in the famous Orquesta de los Hermanos Palau; shortly after he moved to the Cosmopolita orchestra and later worked as an accompanying pianist at the Teatro América at a time when all foreign stars performed there. Faxas accompanied at the piano Pedro Vargas, Sara Montiel, Lola Flores, Tito Guizar, Jorge Negrete, among others.

In the early years of the nineteen-fifties he founded a male quartet to fill the musical programming of television that was then broadcast live. The Faxas quartet became famous for its performances on the most stellar programs on Cuban radio and television, and also for its presentations for years in the musical revues of the Tropicana cabaret directed by the celebrated Rodney. They recorded five albums and performed as a vocal quartet on records by other Cuban stars such as Olga Guillot and Fernando Albuerne.

The Mexican film Tropicana in which maestro Agustín Lara participated took advantage of fragments from the Rapsody in blue review at Tropicana in which the Faxas quartet performed, where there was a scene in which Carlos Faxas shook hands with Ana Berta Lepe, the film's protagonist, so she could dance on top of the grand piano.

He was an active member of the revolutionary movement; in 1957, he was arrested and tortured.

Faxas was already a recognized figure in the Cuban musical scene when he played a role in an event of which he was always proud: the arrangement and staging of the initial recording of the Marcha del 26 de Julio, anthem of the revolutionary movement, conceived by the Moncada combatant Agustín Díaz Cartaya, during his fruitful days in prison at the Presidio de la Isla de Pinos, alongside Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro.

The recording was made on February 15, 1957 in a clandestine manner, under difficult conditions, in a professional studio at Radio Cadena Habana, at the risk of life due to police harassment.

After two years of exile in Miami, he returned to the Triumph of the Revolution and was elected Secretary General of the Unión de Músicos de Cuba, a position he held until 1961, when he returned to the piano and to directing the orchestras of the main hotels in La Habana.

He passed away on September 21, 2014 in La Habana, Cuba, at the age of 92.

Recognitions
During his career he received several recognitions, including the "Orden por la Cultura Nacional," the "Raúl Gómez García" medal, and a replica of the Machete de Máximo Gómez.