Pedro Luis Ferrer Announces Return to Cuba, This Time with His Band

January 30, 2024

Heir to a picaresque tradition in popular music, the guitarist and composer reiterated his commitment to criticism and reflection through art and civic behavior.

Cuban singer-songwriter Pedro Luis Ferrer announced this Sunday his return to the island in 2024 to offer a series of concerts in Havana and in some provincial theater.

"Just as I announced from my last performance at the Teatro de Bellas Artes de La Habana, I intend to present myself again on the Island this year 2024, for the humble people who love my music, in some spacious location that can accommodate a larger audience," wrote on his Facebook site the author of "Butterfly" on this beautiful day of José Martí's birthday.

In his note, the self-taught creator, born in the town of Yaguajay, north-central Cuba, on September 17, 1952, defined himself as an artist who shuns "large plazas" and who prefers and enjoys "modest spaces that allow me to connect intimately with the public. I hope I can also perform in some theater in the interior of the country. That's what I hope for."

According to Ferrer, who plans to travel to Cuba with his small band, the dates of his performances this year depend "on the viable space that the Centro Nacional de Música Popular manages, an institution where I worked for years and which—as I have reiterated—always offered me respect and support."

Pedro Luis Ferrer: "We Need Much Love for Art to Prevail Over Shoddy Work in Cuba"

The repertoire that the troubadour will offer, which ranges from songs and guarachas to works of classical craftsmanship, such as pieces for guitar, preludes, piano fugues and other orchestral formats, will be "the usual one."

"The songs that I composed and sang always, embraced by diverse and restless Cuban society," he stated.

In a kind of small declaration of intent, the author of "El abuelo Paco," said that he believes "in criticism and reflection, and in the role of art as nourishment for the improvement of the people's spirituality. Nothing more important than human improvement."

To support his ideas, the 72-year-old musician cited two great thinkers: British Herbert Spencer, author of the phrase, and Cuban José Martí, his advocate: "Good institutions cannot be made from bad humanity."

Author of classics such as "Ciento por ciento cubano," "Marucha la jinetera", "Carapacho pa' la jicotea" and "Mario Agué," a guaracha versioned by Celia Cruz, Pedro Luis Ferrer has been a careful cultivator of the décima, the sonnet, the redondilla and other free forms of poetry, backed by an impressive command of the classical guitar.

This is the family legacy learned from his father Rodolfo and his uncle, poet and pedagogue Raúl Ferrer, which continues with his daughter Lena Ferrer.

With her he performed in the summer of 2023 in Havana in a couple of concerts at the theater of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.

Predictably, the venue was overflowing with an eager audience that filled even the hallways and who has followed him from a distance, given the musician's itinerant residence in European countries and the United States for decades.

Despite his extensive career and prolific creativity, Ferrer has a modest discography that does not reach ten titles.

Among them stand out Espuma y arena (EGREM, 1987), 100 % cubano (Carapacho Productions, 1994), perhaps the most discussed and reproduced on the island, and Rústico (Escondida, Ultra Records, 2005).