On the steps of the Capitolio in Havana, July 4, 2010
The Yale Alumni Chorus’s ¡Cantemos! Tour to Cuba fulfilled the longstanding dream of YAC president, Sherry Agar, to in a sense recreate the excitement and spirit of adventure of some of the very early YAC tours. Once again, YAC visited an exotic, previously forbidden country, where American chorus visits are a rarity. We were informed by the United States Government that we were indeed the largest group of Americans permitted to go to Cuba in the past 30 years, if not longer. We visited this island country, with its own unique history and cultural identity, at a turning point in its history—with the newspapers daily full of articles about pending evolution in United States and Cuba relations, and with the elderly leadership in Cuba inching towards internal change.
The chorus gave four concerts in Cuba in ten days, all as guests of the Instituto Cubano de la Musica, and with the invaluable assistance of our artistic collaborative partners, Classical Movements. Once again we sang under the inspired direction of Jeff Douma, whose mother and father both sang in the chorus. Imagine being directed by your son! We also performed with Maestra Digna Guerra, perhaps the most eminent choral director in Cuba, whose large chorus named Coro National de Cuba joined us in our main concerts with energetic Cuban-style singing, and whose small chorus named EntreVoces was truly magnificent. Maestra Guerra led the Yale Alumni Chorus in a master class, and inspired us to sing the two Cuban pieces with Cuban passion and rythym, and with YAC sonority. We learned to sing with claves, the two sticks banging together which always set the basic beat in the background, a signature sound with Cuban music. My favorite story of the Tour is the vignette recounted by John Rouse and Tim DeWerff, who visited the famous ice cream shop named Coppelia on our last day, and ended up singing “El Bodeguero” (a Cuban song in our repertoire set in a chocolate shop) with two ice cream parlor sopranos and two nearby policemen basses! We also were the guests of the Coro de Camara de Matanza, directed by Maestro Mendez, in a most unique first concert in the nearby city of Matanzas. The city may be best described as “faded romantic,” along with the concert space, a once-grand room built as a Spanish casino. No air conditioning, open windows, chirping birds, dogs barking, but a wonderful warm audience, great acoustics, and just a grand evening in the YAC tradition of making memorable music in strange spaces. A special tribute to Dean Blocker of the Yale Music School, who flew down to Havana to join us for our main concert, which featured the Beethoven Choral Fantasy, and which took place in a huge union hall, used for Cuban Communist Party confabs and labor meetings (the earlier two concert halls becoming unavailable due to air conditioning issues). We also performed a concert, with a reduced “volunteer” chorus, at the atmospheric beautiful Basilica de San Francisco de Assisi, an historic site and once the main Franciscan church and cloisters for all of Cuba.
Once again YAC served as “Ambassadors of Song”. We saw Cuba on the cusp of great change. We made new friends. So many touristers have told me that they want to return. The Cuban press labeled us “Embargo Busters”! We shall see...
Mark Alberta, Tour Co-Producer