The Electroacoustic Music Festival "Primavera de La Habana" Returns

March 5, 2020

The XIV International Festival of Electroacoustic and Electronic Music Spring in Havana will take place from Tuesday, March 10 to Sunday, March 15, 2020. The celebration will be dedicated to the birthday of maestro Juan Blanco, the first Cuban composer to use electroacoustic, spatial, and multimedia resources.

Enmanuel Blanco, general director of the event, announced at a press conference the intention for the Festival to move throughout Havana. He also mentioned that this edition will have changes in the name and conception of the event. This edition enriches its musical panorama with the participation of foreign artists and includes electronic music as part of the show.

The Manuel Galich hall at Casa de las Américas will host the opening, with electroacoustic music and a sound installation dedicated to Juan Blanco, by visual artist Miltoon Raggi. During the rest of the days, electroacoustic music concerts will take place during the day, while electronic ones will be in the evening, and additionally, some occasions will be used to pay tribute to the pioneers of these genres in Cuba, such as maestros Carlos Fariñas and Jesús Ortega.

The event organizers announced that some of the venues designated for the Festival are the National Theater of Fine Arts, the Ludwig Foundation, Casa Víctor Hugo, Fábrica de Arte Cubano, Centro Cultural Bertolt Brecht, Casa de la Música de Plaza de la Revolución, Centro Cultural Entre Dos, La Cava del Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso, Parque Villalón, the Amphitheater of Havana Vieja, Espacio A+ Adolescentes, and Plaza San Francisco de Asís.

Electroacoustic composers, DJs, electronic music producers, performers and music specialists will participate, as well as artists and visual creators, dancers and actors, all of them both Cuban and foreign.

Cuba will have the participation of DJs coming mainly from the provinces of Cienfuegos, Havana, Holguín, and Camagüey, among them Reitt and Shanara, who will present their CD Deja la bobería at the Café Teatro of Centro Cultural Bertolt Brecht, on Friday the 13th at eleven at night.

On the foreign side, works by artists from 21 countries will be presented, including Gregorio Jiménez (Spain), Annette Vande Gorne (Belgium), Ludger Kisters (Germany), Mauricio Fonseca López (Costa Rica), Mikel Kuehn (United States), Kristi Allik (Canada), and Ángel Blanco (Mexico).

The event will be sponsored by the National Laboratory of Electroacoustic Music, the National Center for Concert Music, the Hermanos Saiz Association, the Cuban Institute of Music, and the Ministry of Culture. Institutions that will also support the tributes dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the National Laboratory of Electroacoustic Music, the 30th anniversary of the Carlos Fariñas Studio of Musical Electroacoustic Art, and the 70th anniversary of the birth of maestro Juan Piñera.

The closing of the event will be on the 15th with a concert at Plaza San Francisco de Asís, where Edesio Alejandro, Dj Lejardi, and Harold Merino will share with guests such as Obini Batá and students from Conservatorio Amadeo Roldán. The next festival will be held in 2021 and will resume its biennial frequency. The call for participation will open starting in April of this year.