Music Captured Jesús Ortega Definitively

April 8, 2023

Jesús Ortega Irusta received the National Music Prize 2022 in an interview granted to the newspaper Granma where the pedagogue and composer tells us about his experiences.

«My first contact with music, especially with the guitar, was at six years of age. According to what an aunt told me, one day, while she was listening to the radio, I approached her and asked her what that sound was. She explained to me that it was from a guitar and she took it upon herself to call the radio station and ask who was playing the instrument. It turned out to be the flamenco guitarist Niño Ricardo. Since then I have not been able to separate myself from these two passions: music and the guitar».

Ortega is 87 years old and has more than 60 years of artistic life, and still finds the strength to continue contributing to the development of the Cuban School of Guitar and contributing to national culture, no longer as an instrumentalist, but as a consultant professor at ISA and director of the guitar orchestra Sonantas Habaneras, which he founded in 1995. That same year, the maestro had the courage —after 40 years of having performed around 3,000 concerts, including concerts, TV and radio broadcasts and others, in Cuba and abroad— to stop offering concerts.

He made the decision during his last international tour as a concert guitarist through Mexico and the United States, during which he realized that he no longer had the firmness necessary to play the instrument. Of course, the decision was difficult for him, but it did not mean the end of his career. Still, he told himself, he could continue contributing to the teaching of the instrument on the Island, contribute more to the training of new guitarists, work that he was already doing and for which he received in 2004 the National Prize for Artistic Teaching, and in 2015 the recognition Master of Youth, which was awarded to him by AHS.

A graduate of the Municipal Conservatory of Music of Havana, in 1958, Jesús Ortega is, without a doubt, a bastion of concert music in Cuba. «Music definitely captured me. My first concert took place in 1956. With Leo, a year later, I made a guitar duo, and a year after that I already had my own Classic Quintet of Wind Instruments. In 1961 I had been appointed head of Activities of the Department of Fine Arts of the Municipality of Havana. I published my first sheet music compositions for guitar at the Publisher of the National Library of Cuba José Martí».

Multiple recognitions received during his extensive and vibrant professional and artistic trajectory color the environment where the maestro creates: «I have to acknowledge that I do not have an extensive body of work as a composer. I have written commissioned works for film, ballet, and theater. Currently I have focused my work toward Sonantas Habaneras».

«To be a good guitarist it is not enough to be only a good professional, you have to feel the music you make. In my case, if what I compose does not move me first, then it is not well achieved. The main thing is inspiration. I have never considered myself superior or inferior to anyone. What matters is the result of the work».