The students were met at Havana airport
on the Friday evening and transported by minibus to the
Costazul Hotel at Villa Panamericana. After checking in
we all went out to eat at the local pizzeria .
The next day we went by taxi to the nearest beach –called
Tarara .the sun was shining as usual and the swimming
good .That evening was the ‘ start of course’
party,held in a bar within the hotel complex .The tutor
band –Estrellas Cubanas were there with wives and
girl friends ..and the rum flowed freely!It was a great
way for students and tutors to get to know each other.
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Sunday -Rumba day in Havana! We all went to the famous
rumba venue –Callehon de Hamel to see our friend
Leonel Cespedes playing with his group Iroso Obba .The
atmoshere was amazing and we had front row seats .Afterwards
we all went to a paladar for a meal –prawns and
rice –great value and very tasty!
Monday ..First study day of the course.. we started with
a Cha cha cha –El Bodeguero and went on to complete
four more songs in the first week :Los tamalitos de Olga
, Pare Cochero ,el Paralitico , and Si te contara.
Saturday :we rented a bus and went on an excursion to
the waterfalls at Soroa in the province of Pinar del rio..After
bathing in the pools around the waterfall ,we ended up
in the nearby bar and were invited to play a couple of
numbers with the resident band .
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Sunday :another free day spent relaxing on the beach
Monday –Thursday …a .further two songs were
added to the repertoire :El Charanga no ha muerto (written
by Rene the flautist in Estrellas Cubanas) and La Almendra
Friday:All morning was spent rehearsing for the performance
,which was held that afternoon in a bar /restaurant near
the hotel ..with some 50 people in the audience the student
group played the full set of seven songs with a guest
Cuban singer .
Later that evening we all accompanied the tutor band-
Estellas Cubanas-to one of Havana’s most popular
clubs-the 700person capacity- El Tropical..they were booked
to play and invited us to perform a number on stage ..we
siezed the opportunity and played ‘Los tamalitos
de Olga ..’a great way to end the course!
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Saturday another free day most of
us went to Santa Maria another beautiful local beach.
In the evening we all went out for a final meal together
and some of us went into Havana for more fun.
Throughout the course students visited discos, clubs and
live shows with Leonel our guide and self appointed ‘director
of entertainment’, who ensured there was seldom
a lull in activities. We also visited several rehearsals
of tutor band Estrellas Cubanas and Chapotin the tres
tutors group.
Four of the students had additional dance classes in both
popular and folkloric styles with Tania the lead dancer
with Irosso Obba.
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Comments From Students On Past
Courses
Students Comments:
Pete’s Comments -
The organisation worked well with motivated and efficient staff.
An excellent variety of song styles were studied, 7 songs in
10 days is pretty good going.
The course exceeded all my expectations and was a brilliant
learning experience. It was great to get hands on with our instruments,
playing with top Cuban musicians, to find out what makes it
all work and where there coming from. Beyond the course, going
out to gigs in Havana, watching the way bands work, joining
in the dancing, getting a handle on the whole social interaction
that is part and parcel of the music scene. All that was a treat
and I’ve been enormously inspired by the whole experience.
Being around musicians opened a lot of doors in Havana. The
tutors were great - professional musicians don’t necessarily
make good tutors but they did a good job and made sure we learned
a lot and the gig was excellent, considering the mixed bag of
musicians that we were. The tutors couldn’t have worked
harder to prepare us for it, and we played well.
There wasn’t much room for improvement, everybody on
the course got on well together. I would recommend this course
to any performing musician wanting to get more deeply involved
with Cuban music.
Zoe Stevenson’s comments
–
I enjoyed being in the thick of it and learnt a lot just from
being around all the other instruments.
Having ago at this was so refreshing and fun and my tutor Arsel
always tempered the music to just about within my capabilities,
but never made me feel unable to do it, even at such a pace.
It was wonderful to be met at the airport and have the taxi
waiting to go to the hotel after such a journey the thought
of trying to get my brain in gear and come up with the Spanish
would have been too much!
Everything worked from the shower to the air conditioning and
if there was a problem they fixed it immediately, amazing! It
was good to have sea breeze and being surrounded by palm trees.
