Roberto Sánchez Ferrer

He began his musical studies at the Conservatory of Instituto Edison, under the direction of José Ardévol. He learned to play the clarinet. Later he studied Harmony and Composition with Félix Guerrero, as well as Orchestral Direction with Jan Contanstinescu and Enrique González Mántici.

He has worked as an instrumentalist and conductor on radio and television. He has performed as a guest in numerous concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra.

He is the author of the opera Van Troi and the cantata Jatín. He worked as a professor. He was president of the Music section of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba.

He began his artistic career in 1945, directing a musical revue at Instituto Edison, with a group made up of musicians from the Philharmonic Orchestra of Havana. In 1945 he joined the jazz group Los Raqueteros del Swing, with Arturo O'Farrill (Chico), director and trumpet; Roberto Sánchez Ferrer, clarinet; Fausto García Rivera, drums; José Álvarez, piano; Kiki Hernández, bass; Gustavo Mas, saxophone; Isidro Pérez (Isito) and Rafael Mola, guitar, and Ana Menéndez, vocalist.

He continued his career as saxophonist and clarinetist with the orchestra Hermanos Castro, later worked with Los Hermanos Le Batard, with Riverside, and in the cabarets Tropicana, Sans-Souci, Habana Casino, Montmartre and Hotel Nacional. During this period he performed instrumentals, made orchestrations for different soloists and recorded albums with Esther Borja, Fernando Álvarez, and Alfredo Sadel.

Artistic Maturity
In 1955 he conducted the orchestra of Channel 2 of television, Telemundo, for which he directed the opera La Bohème, by Puccini, in which Belén Ramos and Ana Menéndez performed, sopranos; Lorenzo Soto, tenor, and Fernando Labrada, baritone.

In 1958 he founded as director the orchestra of Musical Youth, with instrumentalists José A. Montoto, Lenin Rodríguez, Antonio M. Leonard, Alberto Pichardo, Lázaro Lombida, Alejandro Tomás Valdés, Rodolfo A. Dita, Carlos E. Prado and José Ángel Pérez Gálvez; also participating were Electo Silva, then violinist of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Santiago de Cuba, and Osvaldo Cañizares, viola of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Havana; the first concert took place on December 14 of that same year at the Lyceum and Lawn Tennis Club, with works by Bach, Vivaldi and Purcell.

In 1960 Sánchez Ferrer was appointed assistant conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of Havana, and later director.

In 1961 he traveled to Paris as musical director of Modern Dance of Cuba, and there conducted the orchestra of the Sara Bernhardt National Theater. After his return to Cuba, he directed La traviata, by Verdi.

In 1963 the University of Uruguay awarded him the Sunset over Agate and Amethyst prize for his recording with the Symphony Orchestra of Leipzig radio, of the work by Uruguayan composer Alberto Soriano Symphonic Songs of Revolutionary Cuba.
He was general director of the National Opera of Cuba, with which he traveled to Mexico and presented the zarzuela by Gonzalo Roig Cecilia Valdés.

He has conducted, among others, the symphony orchestras of Leipzig, Poland, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Soviet Union, Chihuahua, Mexico, and Cuba.

He is the Principal Conductor of the Orchestra of the Gran Teatro de la Habana

Works
A Santiago, ballet, text: Juan Almeida
Choral Song, text: José Martí
Jatín, symphonic-vocal poem, for mezzo-soprano, narrator, orchestra, mixed chorus and children's chorus
La noche, for women's chorus, text: Rolando López del Amo
Son-My, cantata
Theme and Variations, didactic work where each traditional form is united with a Cuban genre: guajira, bembé, danzón and the theme is taken from Chivo que rompe tambó, by Eliseo Grenet
Van Troi, opera in three acts, text: Phen Thi Quyen
Yamba-O, opera.