Vanguardias mirando al Este y al Sur. Los festivales de música contemporánea en Cuba y su relación con la Europa Oriental y Latinoamérica (1959-1990)

Abstract

Contemporary Cuban musical activity between 1959 and 1990 was characterized as one of the most prolific and attractive in its young history. The Contemporary Music Festivals of the Socialist Countries (1974-1985), the Contemporary Cuban Music Workshops (1978-1986), and the Contemporary Music Festivals of Havana (1984-present) were the spaces par excellence for the promotion of new techniques, aesthetics, and contact with an expectant international and political musical avant-garde. Exchanges of Cuban music and culture with the outside world in the tense Cold War stage had, on the one hand, as its central axis the countries of the socialist bloc. On the other, it was an arduous communication channel with the nascent Latin American avant-gardes. This article aims to delve into the development of this ambivalent dynamic of aesthetic and ideological exchanges, which has become a counter-hegemonic and anti-imperialist “territory-network.” Its primary sources include a varied number of concert programs, brochures, recordings, correspondences, reviews, interviews, and articles located in periodicals of the time.

Keywords

• casa de las américas
• contemporary music
• cuba
• festivals
• music and politics
• uneac