Cuban Star Eliades Ochoa, La Mar de Músicas 2024 Award Winner

July 24, 2024

Eliades Ochoa is a living star of the La Mar de Músicas festival in Cartagena. The Cuban singer and guitarist received the La Mar de Músicas Award this Monday, July 22, before his concert at the Paco Martín Auditorium in Parque Torres. Eliades Ochoa performed in Cartagena for the first time in 1998, when the Cuba special was held.

"I feel like an accomplished musician with this La Mar de Músicas Award. Many words would fall short to express what I feel. Cartagena has become, thanks to this festival, a pole of worldwide interest where music adorns every summer. People from different parts of the world come here, and later want to return. I arrived, as the poet says, walking; there is no road for the traveler, the road is made by walking. With that thought I continue wanting to return to Cartagena," Eliades Ochoa said in gratitude.

Noelia Arroyo, mayor of Cartagena, and José Luis Cegarra, who was the festival director and founder along with the esteemed Paco Martín, presented the award to this Buena Vista Social Club legend on a night that also saw the attendance of the regional culture advisor, Carmen Conesa, and the mayor of La Unión and president of the Foundation of the Las Minas Flamenco Festival, Joaquín Zapata.

The brilliant Santiago-born singer and guitarist is a man who weathered his guitar and conquered the world, as journalist Lara López noted in the prior presentation. The award is a work donated by Cartagena-based artist Fernando Sáenz de Elorrieta. Thus, La Mar de Músicas honors Eliades Ochoa for being a musician faithful to tradition and remembering the voice of the Cuban people by making son and bolero universal.

He receives this distinction from the festival organized by the Cartagena City Council, as did Rubén Blades, Youssou N´Dour, Salif Keita, Totó la Momposina, Oumou Sangaré, Susana Baca, Cheick Lô, Pablo Milanés, Omara Portuondo, Gino Paoli and Jorge Drexler before him. After receiving the La Mar de Músicas Award, Eliades Ochoa offers a special live performance in Spain, as he shares the stage with invited artists: Eurobeat winner Chanel, flamenco singer Argentina from Huelva and singer Zenet from Málaga.

"Spain is my second home, it has welcomed me with open arms. I am grateful to La Mar de Músicas for this recognition of my artistic career, which I have been developing since 1963 and which is the legacy of traditional Santiago troubadour music and so many masters who have left their mark," Eliades emphasizes. The artist also expresses his affection for Cartagena, "it is a Mediterranean city full of history and tradition, which I identify with. Furthermore, it is home to very warm and affable people. That is why I am delighted to return and share with my audience, who know my repertoire and trajectory."

ELIADES OCHOA

Born in 1946 in Santiago de Cuba, he is one of the most important son singers of all time. Founding member of Buena Vista Social Club, he continues to perform the group's greatest hits in his repertoire. On his most recent album, 'Guajiro,' different string styles stand out with violin solos, bouzouki, bass and Eliades' guitar which is always present in songs that also draw from saxophone mambos.

A reference point and icon of traditional Cuban music, the singer is also considered the best guitarist of his generation. He receives this award from the festival organized by the Cartagena City Council, as did Rubén Blades, Youssou N´Dour, Salif Keita, Totó la Momposina, Oumou Sangaré, Susana Baca, Cheick Lô, Pablo Milanés, Omara Portuondo, Gino Paoli and Jorge Drexler.

Eliades Ochoa is a regular at La Mar de Músicas. He has visited it on numerous occasions. The first time he set foot in Cartagena was in 1998 when La Mar de Músicas held a Cuba Special. A year in which Cuban music became very popular throughout the world, thanks to Buena Vista Social Club. Years later, in 2010, he premiered the wonderful Afrocubism project at our festival, where the music of Cuba and Africa joined hands. In 2022 he sold out tickets on his last visit to La Mar de Músicas.

His melodious voice has carried authentic trovador music, originating from eastern Cuba, to the entire world, making universal a style of music inspired both by the Spanish décimas of ancient troubadours and the most stimulating African rhythms, rural music that the troveros moved from town to town, with stories full of vivacity and catchy rhythms; and which had already competed with the son and bolero of the 1920s in Havana, thanks to songs like the legendary Chan Chan.

Eliades Ochoa, a star of Casa de la Trova in Santiago, had received it on a cassette from its author, Francisco Repilado, better known by his nickname Compay Segundo. Eliades not only recorded it with the group he directed, Cuarteto Patria, in Santiago de Cuba in 1985, but also wanted to include it on his first CD, 'A una coqueta,' on the Eduardo Llerenas label, Discos Corasón, which Llerenas ran in Mexico with his wife, Mary Farquharson.

The story of the love between a couple from Siboney, Santiago de Cuba, Juanica and her boyfriend Chan Chan, whose nickname emulated the clacking of the train with which he traveled from Alto Cedro to Marcané and from Cueto to Mayarí.

Chan Chan later became part of another great adventure, Buena Vista Social Club, following Nick Gold's meeting with Ry Cooder and Eduardo Llerenas at the EGREM Studios in Havana, and before that, in London, in the office of Toumani Diabate's production company, a specialist in northwestern African music, musicologist Lucy Durán, where guitarist Juan de Marcos González and other members of the Cuban group Sierra Maestra were also present, meetings that would forever change the place of Cuban music, and traditional music in general, on the planet.