Pancho Céspedes announces new album with Pablo Milanés collaboration

January 14, 2023

Francisco "Pancho" Céspedes, the Cuban musician from Santa Clara, announced to the Mexican press that mid-year will see the release of a new album featuring the collaboration of troubadour Pablo Milanés, who recently passed away.

"Pablo Milanés left his entire vocal participation recorded; now I'm going to Spain to record my part and to arrange the instrumental sections of piano, bass, drums, strings that include a cello and percussion. A recording where he sings my songs and I sing his. It will be finished mid-year," he detailed to the newspaper La Razón.

"His recent death deeply affected me. We were intimate confidants. When I heard 'Para vivir' I realized how a song should be written. Pablo Milanés is the greatest composer and vocalist Cuba has had in the last 60 years," he declared about Pablo.

Céspedes also reported that he is "finalizing details" for a "very special" tour of the Canary Islands, in Spain. The singer arrived in Mexico in 1992, where he settled.

"I haven't returned to my country to perform. I am censored by the government. The last time I performed in Havana was in September 2018 at a live concert invited by Pablo Milanés at the Karl Marx," he said.

With more than three decades of artistic career, the musician confessed that he "stands firm" on "romantic song" as the ideal medium for "confessing the intimacies of the heart, the joys of love, sentimental failures and also life's alternatives."

"Pancho" had very harsh words against reggaeton and asserted that he is "worried about those musical aberrations." "It seems monotonous to me, rhythmically speaking, besides having deplorable lyrics," he stated.

Finally, the Cuban performer said that his main goal for 2023 is to complete the album with Pablo Milanés and develop some tours through various cities in Spain and the United States.

"Finish the duet album with Pablo Milanés and shape a new one of mine that I'm already working on with producer Aneiro Taño. Tours that start mid-January in the Canary Islands, and extend through much of Spain, continuing to Costa Rica and in the second half of the year through some cities in the United States and Puerto Rico," he concluded.