Pedro Luis Ferrer will perform in concert on August 22 at Bellas Artes

August 3, 2023

The troubadour Pedro Luis Ferrer had spent months looking for a space to perform "without much fanfare or fuss", and finally "the only one that I hadn't even hinted at came through", he said in reference to the Bellas Artes Theater Hall, where he will perform alongside his daughter Lena.

After six years without stepping on a stage in Cuba, singer-songwriter Pedro Luis Ferrer will offer a "troubadour concert" in Havana on August 22.

The troubadour thanked "the good offices" of the National Center for Popular Music, an institution where he worked for many years, and from which he keeps "a pleasant experience of support and personal and professional respect".

After announcing last June that he would soon be in his homeland to embrace his family and lifelong friends, he then assured that he would love to perform "in some discreet little venue (very affordable for the public) that doesn't require fanfare".

He prefers, he assures, small spaces and "especially now that the country is going through a critical stretch that requires restraint and humility, in keeping with the hardships of the people".

Months ago he mentioned among the problems that prevented him from acting in larger venues, the dilemma concerning the right to freedom of expression in Cuba. "It gives off a bitter taste that advises conciseness and sobriety, without room for the slightest vanity that could result in ostentation and privilege of a freedom that is neither equitable nor generalized", he considered.

Beyond the artistic, he recounted details of the task awaiting him at his "endemic garbage-filled corner" home, which requires "urgent maintenance" as a result of humidity and termites. "I want to keep reasonably potable the refuge that allowed me to create in peace most of my humble work", he noted.

Last April, Ferrer celebrated that his music continues to be heard in Cuba following the rebroadcast on national television of the 23 y M program, in which he participated as a guest in 2017, and in which he felt "like at home", "after many years without performing on national television".

The author of songs such as "100 percent Cuban" and "Artificial Insemination", known for his critical stance toward the Government, has lived in Miami for some years and will turn 71 next September.

Considered one of the most important Cuban musicians of recent decades, he was born in 1952 in Yaguajay, province of Sancti Spíritus. He is the nephew of poet and pedagogue Raúl Ferrer.