Cubainformacion.- In Bilbao, on June 4, at the Deusto Bookstore, at 6:00 p.m. (time already rectified), the presentation of the book “Havana, day of a year” will be held, a title taken from one of the emblematic songs of the Cuban troubadour Silvio Rodríguez. It is published by the oja publishing house, linked to the singer-songwriter’s studies in Havana, and is written by the Cuban researcher Patricia Ballote Álvarez, who will be present at said presentation, along with the journalist Sergio Iglesias.
The book has the full title “Havana, day of a year. More than half a century since a ‘nueva trova'” and is the most recent delivery of the oja Editorial Label, from the Silvio Rodríguez Office.
The first presentation in Euskal Herria took place last Sunday the 26th in Donostia. AND, After the presentation in Bilbao, on Thursday the 6th, it will be held in Balmaseda.
“Havana, day of a year…” evokes the significance of the first concert offered together by Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés and Noel Nicola at the Casa de las Américas on February 19, 1968. Its connotations in the lives of those creators novices and in that of so many young people who felt represented by them at that time. It addresses the links of that generation with a time of particular intensity, and its role in the germination of an artistic movement that would later be recognized as of special significance: the new trova. Along with the testimony of some of the protagonists and spectators, the book also makes available to the public more than a dozen photos of the concert that remained unpublished and were located by the author during the investigation.
Patricia Ballote Alvarez (Havana, 1992) has a degree in Preservation and Management of Historical Cultural Heritage from the San Gerónimo University College in Havana and for ten years she was part of the work team at the oja Studies-Silvio Rodríguez Office.
Havana, one year’s day: More than half a century since the birth of the “Nueva Trova” / Book by Patricia Ballote
By Syara Salado Massip and Graciela Ramírez / Latin American-Cuba Summary.
“This accumulation of memories is transformed into a new memory, ironically from an event that many of us have experienced and each one remembers a little bit.“. This is how Silvio Rodríguez described the book by Patricia Ballote Álvarez recently presented at the Museum of Music in Havana.
With the seal of Editorial oja, it recalls the night of February 19, 1968 at Casa de las Américas, when three little-known young people offered the legendary concert that would mark not only that date in the intense cultural calendar, but also a before and after in Cuban and Latin American music.
It still echoes in the mystique that the walls of the Che Guevara room hold and subjectively marked the birth of Nueva Trova. “One of the virtues that a book like this has is putting together that puzzle, putting all those little pieces together and making a more comprehensive vision, ultimately more fair, it is one of the virtues that books like these and this one in particular have.” Silvio stated with a special shine in his eyes.
“Havana, day of one year” title of Silvio’s song and of the book with which Patricia Ballote makes her debut as a researcher and writer, places us again in that room full of young people, even sitting in the hallways, who delighted in listening to the lyrics and music of the songs by Pablo Milanés, Silvio Rodríguez and Noel Nicola. In which three young people who were in the audience also sang: Martín Rojas, Eduardo Ramos and Vicente Feliú.
What began a few years ago as the young writer’s bachelor’s thesis became the first writing of the texts that appear in the book. The author’s admiration for that generation, for Nueva Trova, for what it means, the concept that surrounds it and for being a movement that, although it had great precedents, took flight to establish itself in the history of Cuban music.
A meticulous reconstruction of what happened and was born that day marks the ’68 concert as the birth of the Nueva Trova that emerged naturally, with the initiative of a group of creators who thought collectively, making it massive. To the memory of Haydeé Santamaría and in honor of what the House of the Americas means for the culture of an entire continent, the young Cuban writer dedicated the text that was recently presented at the Cuban Music Museum, which filled the room, some of them protagonists of that singular night, like Silvio. Among friends, family and followers of Nueva Trova, Patricia Ballote confessed:
“It is also an opportunity to share history with my child, if it had been a few years ago then it would not have been possible but above all because his presence somehow saves me from those sensitive absences and forces me to ask myself something that I had not considered before. , which is how he will then inherit this piece of history that we are presenting“.
“The testimonies collected here begin a new journey today, not as a single piece of information but as multiple stories that will go from hand to hand, reviving, interweaving, strengthening, transforming and spreading like spores. Promoting this coming and going has been a bit of the purpose of these pages (…) to think that from this publication other people can recognize themselves in these images, perhaps other people will remember that they were there and I like to think that this is just the first of other stories to come.”
In the introductory words of the book, which has unpublished photos and poems, Patricia expresses: “That day, in that room (not yet baptized with Che’s name and where the Tree of Life had not yet been planted, with which several generations would later identify it) a creative phenomenon of enormous scope was born, which was going to merge poetry, music, epic, love, tradition and rupture in a way unknown until then. Not even the protagonists themselves suspected it. Neither did the attendees, nor the scholars and critics of the moment.”
A brief Press Release from Casa de las Américas, without any other publicity resource, issued two days before the concert, a facsimile of which is included in the introduction, and preserved in the Casa archive, said: Musical Download from the Casa de las Américas Protest Song Center. “Next Monday the 19th, at 9 pm, the Protest Song Center of the Casa de las Américas, will offer a MUSICAL DOWNLOAD, which will be performed by Pablo Milanés, Noel Nicola and Silvio Rodríguez. Casa de las Américas, February 17 1968, Year of the Heroic Guerrilla.”
Fifty-five years later, the young author evokes in her book “the significance that February 19 had from different points of view. Its connotations in the life of each of those new creators and in the lives of so many young people who felt represented by them, its links with a time of particular historical and cultural intensity. and politics for Cuba and the world, and its role in the germination of an artistic movement that would later be recognized as having special national and international significance. “This fact went unnoticed like many others that were ignored at the time and later marked the collective memory of an entire generation.”. And he leaves us with the profound words of Roberto Fernández Retamar that we transcribe below:
…The symbols they made
They had no Book: those who made things
They had no names, or at least their names
Nobody knew them. The dates they filled
They were empty like an empty house.
…The immense wind that affirms it sweeps the mountains and the plains
Where those who have no name,
Or whose names no one knows yet,
They prepare flares in the shade
For empty dates that we will see burn.
Editor’s note: The book is for sale at the Music Museum, if you don’t have it yet, go get it before it runs out. It is a beauty from the first to the last page.
Photos: Syara Salado Massip.
