Eladia de la Caridad Calvo Montalvo

Cuban singer with an extraordinary musical career and recipient of the Distinction for National Culture.

Many fell in love listening to her voice in the nightclubs and cabarets of Havana in the 1960s of the past century. She transformed musical notes and song lyrics into kisses, caresses and embraces. She awakened emotions to the rhythm of a peculiar interpretive style, sober and soft.

She became an exquisite exponent of feeling, a renewal movement of Cuban music led by César Portillo de la Luz and José Antonio Méndez.

Ela Calvo is considered indebted to the jazz influence of Billy Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sara Vaughan, as well as the teachings of Aida Diestro. The truth is that she was part of one of the most emblematic female quartets in our musical history alongside Omara Portuondo, Elena Burke and Moraima Secada as part of Las D'Aida.

Ela began her career as a singer in 1952 in a group under the direction of Facundo Rivero, through the Circuito Radial Cubano radio station, in the accompanying chorus of the great Rita Montaner. She was also welcomed by the group directed by Rodolfo Pichardo at the casino of the Tropicana cabaret. At the same Tropicana in the Panorámico combining performances at the Crystal Arch with maestro Luis Carbonell, Elena Burke and the Cuarteto Los Meme. She later moved to the production directed by maestro Armando Suez in Bajo las Estrellas where she shared the stage with Paulina Álvarez, Victor Franco, Mercedes Fernández among others.

Already in 1959 Ela Calvo made her professional debut as a soloist, and the chosen location was the club of the Saint Johns hotel, while she attended radio and television programs, or appeared in the billboards of musical magazines assembled for abroad.

In those years she did not abandon Tropicana until 1965 when she had her great trial by offering the first recital at the National Museum of Fine Arts.

Her first international tour took place in 1967, when she was applauded by the public of the Dominican Republic and Czechoslovakia.

A pleasant gift came to Ela Calvo in 1968 when she won second place at the International Song Festival of Sopot (Poland).
Her presence was also noted at the Lira de Oro in Bratislava, the Limasol (Cyprus), the Dresden song festival in Germany, at the Boleros de Oro, and at the one dedicated to Agustín Lara.

In 1971 she performed her major recital at the Teatro Amadeo Roldan before embarking on the tour that she described as the most exciting of her life when she performed before the Chilean public in theaters, massive spectacles, TV and recording studios accompanied by the Orquesta Aragón.

In 1972 she traveled again but this time with Pacho Alonso's orchestra with the musical revue Directo de Cuba touring Germany, the Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Spain.

She later traveled to Venezuela and Jamaica where she achieved great success. Later she toured Angola, Romania, the Soviet Union, returning twice more to Angola.

For a period of three months the Berlin public heard her again at the Fredrich Stadt Palast. Her performances in Venezuela have been well-received where she has visited on three artistic tours.

Her extensive repertoire includes varied music, both Cuban and international from romantic song of all times, the bolero, the son, the feeling, she gives it all in a new way, marked by sentiment and appropriate communication with the audience.

She was invited to participate in countless events and festivals such as the Dresden Song Festival, the Lira de Oro Festival in Bratislava, the Limassol Festival in Cyprus, International Fairs in Mexico and Plovdiv.

An important moment for this artist was the Festival El Hombre y el Mar in Rostovk where she obtained the Interpretation Prize and the song defended by her was awarded as the most appropriate to the festival's theme.

In 1998 she traveled with the Los Van Van orchestra through European countries. She was invited in 2002 to travel to Colombia to perform at the Teatro Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Bogotá. In November 2000 she was invited to travel to Spain for the presentation of the Cuba Soul Collection. She was invited in 2000 and 2001 to Mexico to participate in the Agustín Lara Festival.

Latin America, Europe and Africa also witnessed her presence, and among the composers that make up her repertoire are José Antonio Méndez, Rafael Ortiz, Juan Almeida, Marta Valdés, and el Niño Rivera, to name a few.

Recordings
She recorded five long-playing records for the Areito Label, in 1996 she recorded a compact disc with EGREM, she was chosen to be part of the Seis Perlas Cubanas project alongside figures such as Beatriz Márquez, Perla Negra among others. In 2000 the album Still There's a Song recorded with EGREM was nominated for the Record Fair in Havana.

Awards and Distinctions
In 2002 in the city of Santiago de Cuba she received the Recognition of this place at the Teatro Heredia. She possesses the Distinction for National Culture, Adolfo Guzmán Distinction in 1995 awarded by the Provincial Center of Music "Adolfo Guzmán" of the same name, Gitana Tropical Distinction 2002 awarded by the Provincial Department of Culture, Laureate Seal awarded by the National Trade Union, Majahonda Distinction 1986 awarded by UNEAC, she possesses the Internationalist Medal, is a member of UNEAC and currently belongs to the Catalog of the Boleros Hall of the Centro Dos Gardenias.

Replica of the Machete Mambí of Generalissimo Máximo Gómez (2017), granted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces for being a bearer in her work of the most authentic patriotism and attachment to the Revolution.

It may come as a surprise to many, but Ela Calvo's initial repertoire was not precisely feeling, but rather afro. However, her knowledge of bolero very soon made her a romantic interpreter par excellence. In her early years the singer was very concerned with diction, with the way of singing the song and left sentiment somewhat aside.

But this has changed over time, until placing it in the first place as the interpreter assures: "I hear the records from then and I hear those of today, and I say to myself: I'm singing better now. Sentiment has triumphed. I completely immerse myself in the lyrics and the text of the song."

Although Ela Calvo's repertoire includes varied music, there is a predominance of romantic song of all times, marked by sentiment and appropriate communication with the audience.

As she once confessed: "To choose a song (…) I think about the audience. Then I think about myself. I'm concerned with being able to "say" it because if I don't "say" it, listeners can't receive it."

Despite her long career, she has only recorded five albums, the most recent being Still There's a Song.

A long-career interpreter, Ela Calvo is part of the Dos Gardenias catalog and promises to remain on stage until the end of her days.

So she assures when she expresses: "The song is my life. The time I have left to live, as Alberto Vera would say, I'm going to dedicate to the song. At this point I can't tell you that I'm going to leave it. It would be dying the next day. I'm going to die on stage."

She passed away in Havana in 2021 at the age of 87 as a result of pneumonia derived from illnesses of her advanced age.