Tribute to Agustín Díaz Cartaya on his 90th birthday

October 2, 2019

The Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso and the president of the Institute of Music, Martha Bonet, attended last night the celebration of the 90th birthday of Agustín Díaz Cartaya, the author of the Hymn of July 26th, The March of Latin America, among other celebrated compositions.

Owner of a prodigious memory and with the cheerfulness of a habitual joker, Díaz Cartaya demonstrated having good health for new anniversaries, and evoked together with his wife many anecdotes of how the Hymn of Liberty and the March of Latin America were born and multiplied among Cubans, after they were then known by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro.

The fraternal visit became a gathering of family and friends, where Díaz Cartaya and the Minister of Culture engaged in a pleasant dialogue, which lasted for more than two hours, and where converged the composer of hymns and marches, the author of numerous poems, and the revolutionary fighter who, in defense of his ideas, suffered torture at the hands of Haitian henchmen.