Omara Portuondo will say goodbye to the stage with a world tour

February 17, 2022

"I feel it is a good time to personally say a farewell to my followers in the most distant countries, to which, since teleportation hasn't been invented yet, it seems more difficult that I could return," argues the artist in the press release sent by her office.

Omara Portuondo: "I intend to sing as long as I have a voice and people want to hear me."

Hers will not be an absolute and immediate retirement, but rather from international commitments. "For me, singing is living, it is my way of being. If you ask me about my favorite place, it will always be the stage, the song I sing, the next applause. As long as I have a voice and someone wants to hear me, allow me to sing," she points out.

Portuondo, who turned 90 years old in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, a round anniversary for which she had precisely begun another "tour" when the pandemic was declared, justifies the title of this upcoming tour after "so much sad news, so many goodbyes, so much distance, which have made us better understand the value of life, family and friends."

The diva of the Buena Vista Social Club, who anticipates that perhaps after this last journey outside of Cuba she "should spend more time in the studios," has just opened ticket sales for the concerts, so she has not advanced any dates for now.

In July 2021, Portuondo performed at the Teatre Grec in Barcelona, as part of her concerts for her 90th birthday.

Portuondo (Havana, 1930) is one of the great exponents of traditional Cuban music, where she is also revered as the "fiancée of filin," a genre of Cuban song characterized by its moving lyrics that was born in the 1940s.

Her long career began in 1945 as a dancer at the famous Havana cabaret Tropicana, but it was in song where she found her space starting from the golden age of her country's traditional music, where she soon shared the stage with César Portillo de la Luz and José Antonio Méndez.

As a member of the Cuarteto de las D'Aida with Elena Burke, Moraima Secada and her sister Haydée, she accompanied stars such as Édith Piaf, Pedro Vargas, Rita Montaner, Bola de Nieve, Benny Moré and Nat King Cole.

It is from the 1970s onwards that her name becomes established with its own weight when singing with the Orquesta Aragón and recording acclaimed albums such as Palabras and Desafíos with the Spanish label Nubenegra.

At over 70 years old, she reinforces her position as an international star with the success of the Buena Vista Social Club, with which she travels around the world receiving applause from audiences and critics. In 2009 she won a Latin Grammy in the tropical music category for her album Gracias, for which she was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Tropical Music Album.

Likewise, she received the National Music Prize, the most prestigious of its kind in Cuba, and in 2019 she reached the Latin Grammy Award for Musical Excellence, among many other awards.