Ruy López-Nussa stirs Cuban stage with his percussion

September 22, 2024

Cuban percussionist Ruy López-Nussa performed a concert today at the theater of the Museo de Bellas Artes, in this capital, to celebrate 15 years of his project La Academia, inspired by his book «Ritmos de Cuba».

Born in Ciudad de México (1957) and having settled in La Habana at a very young age, López Nussa studied intermediate music in the percussion specialty and completed his studies in 1982 at the Instituto Superior de Arte.

A teacher par excellence and contributor to the world of percussion, the Academia is to this day that creative space where he combines concerts and teaching, demonstrating his passion for music and education.

In a luxury concert for the Havana public, the artist combined different genres of popular and folk music, with which he showed a very personal interchange between Afro-Cuban percussion and drums.

During these three lustres of artistic work, La Academia has developed and illustrated through a musical group the methodological path initiated with the book «Ritmos de Cuba».

The show became a mixture of that richness and rhythmic blend of this country, and the pieces performed, with arrangements mostly by Roberto García and Alejandro Falcón, are nourished by jazz and different musical currents.

These musical branches were adapted especially to the format of the project, with piano, bass, trumpet, percussion and drums.

The recital was sponsored by the Instituto Cubano de la Música and the Centro Nacional de Música de Concierto, in addition to the support of the Embajada Británica en Cuba and the Agencia Francesa para el Desarrollo.