Marcos Madrigal: Cubanness in a Roman Piano

June 28, 2020

Although Marcos Madrigal was not one of the boys who grew up running through the neighborhoods of Havana, nor did he find shelter for his first sorrows in the nights of the Malecón, he is unmistakably a true Cuban. In the midst of Rome, that dazzling city, Marcos stands out, above all its thousand-year-old cobblestones, because you can feel he is different… You know it from the blood that runs through his veins, from that joy he carries with him, from the inherited charm… all at first glance. Although his impeccable and well-fitted suit, his equanimity and the keys of the classical piano try to hide it, Marcos Madrigal has his roots in Cuba, and a good part of his musical heart.

And it is that one never really leaves, especially someone who loves the land like this young concert pianist, despite having put down roots in Italy more than 10 years ago now. Committed to the mobility of art, Madrigal dedicates almost half the year to planning an event in Cuba devoted to his greatest passion: Habana Clásica, his little daughter. It is that sense of bringing the best from several continents, from concert halls, to the most unusual corners of the Cuban capital. An encounter that grows every year and adds manifestations that captivate even the most uninterested in chamber music sonorities. But that's not all.

In recent days a new phonogram came to light that drags headlines and the name of Cuba linked to Marcos, even though it was created more than 8000 kilometers from the island. "Chansons y Songs," is the first installment of Hemisphaeria Trio, a project in which he shares with two other recognized soloists from the international concert scene. Along with Caribbean tempo, the Italian soprano Damiana Mizzi, who performs regularly in important opera theaters worldwide, and Roberto Masueto, who has centered his career on chamber repertoire and regularly collaborates with the orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia… A divine synergy, as critics say. It must be that each one puts in equal magic…

Under the label of the Italian-Japanese record company Da Vinci Publishing, specialized in classical music and jazz, this luxury is born, because it is a luxury, where the group of musicians unite "enchanted by the discovery of a repertoire mostly unknown," according to the official Hemisphaeria Trio website. Chansons y Songs is made up of three cycles of works with French poetic texts that serve as the guiding thread of this proposal with compositions by the Frenchman Maurice Ravel, the British James Francis Brown and the Romanian Liana Alexandra… a coming and going of sonorities that undoubtedly, in various chords, has the flavor of the tropics. An unmissable gift.