Concert and Exhibition: Eusebio Leal in Memoriam

November 14, 2020

Good music, that which emanates from the heart to generate and transmit feelings or emotions that encourage human improvement, was one of the passions of Eusebio Leal Spengler. For this reason, just hours before his eternal beloved – Havana – celebrates in his name the 501st anniversary of its founding, the Minor Basilica of the Convent of San Francisco de Asís hosted the concert "Eusebio Leal in memoriam".

The initiative that took place on November 13 at 7 in the evening was led by José María Vitier, and also brought together in the prestigious concert hall other great exponents of Cuban music: Amaury Pérez, Bárbara Llanes, Niurka González, Javier Cantillo and Abel Acosta.

"May this concert and exhibition serve as our loving tribute and that of his beloved artist friends who accompany us… to deliver music and beauty to he who urged us to dream and love our city in body, and above all, in soul", said José María Vitier and his wife Silvia Rodríguez, in the words conceived for the concert program.

At first, Magda Resik Aguirre, Director of Communication for the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana, recalled the importance that Leal granted to beauty and art, conditions that the emblematic Basilica brings together so that the Cuban people can enjoy both. She also stated that the Historian of the City symbolizes something that Cintio Vitier defined very well: the Cuban being. That was Leal, an authentic Cuban.

"We suffer from an orphanhood of Leal – she affirmed – but his presence is in his legacy and in everything he offered us, what he taught us; for that reason he will always be among us".

For José María Vitier it was not easy to describe what it feels like to play in the Basilica without Eusebio sitting in the audience presiding over and sponsoring everything with his presence and also illuminating this place. The pianist recalled how in one of the last meetings with the Historian, Leal devoted beautiful minutes to speaking about the future of the city, about projects, about destiny… "Today we do not have his physical presence but we are not going to let the memory and legacy of Eusebio remain in the past. That is the only tribute he would accept", he stated.

Eight pieces by the prestigious Cuban composer and pianist filled the evening with music and memories, held in compliance with the hygienic-sanitary measures imposed by the current epidemiological situation.

The premieres "Ofrenda", performed together with the violin of Javier Cantillo, and "Yo te amo ciudad", in the beautiful voice of Bárbara Llanes, were among the surprises of the musical event.

"The work of Eusebio Leal – also point out the words of the program –, at the head of the titanic tasks of the reconstruction of our Old Havana, deserves a place among the great Cuban feats. Along with the imposing vastness of his achievements in environmental and architectural rescue, which never cease to amaze us, we admire even more the depth of spiritual refounding that beats in each space rescued from neglect and oblivion. His work went beyond laying stone upon stone, rebuilding temples or palaces, planting gardens and recovering old plazas; and it reached the dream of enlivening the city and doing it with the imperative of rigor, fervor, and even, refinement, that is put only in the most beloved essences".

"Eusebio knew how to interpret the city's signals from its history, its baroque profiles, its melting pot of ethnicities, its eclectic becoming, by restoring the forgotten dignity of primordial trades, the original meaning of the names of each street, and doing it also with the artist's gaze, who had the capacity to see what was and foresee what does not yet exist: the city encoded in metaphors that are the key to its resistance and its future.

"Contemplating the epic of Eusebio in the rescue of our Havana has been like watching a sleeping city awaken, to achieve, paradoxically, that we can continue dreaming about it and in it. For that reason he deserves a place beside the spiritual founders of the nation- assures the artist referring to the characteristics of the place where the ashes of the eternal Historian of the City of Havana will rest", state José María Vitier and Silvia Rodríguez Rivero.

After the concert – another tribute to Leal – the exhibition "Complicidades" by Silvia Rodríguez Rivero was inaugurated in the Carmen Montilla Gallery, just in front of the Basilica.

Just as Havana is about to turn 501 years old, these first two gifts arrive that also translate into a tribute to he who is the eternal defender, admirer, lover of its streets, walls and cobblestones: Eusebio Leal Spengler.