International Jazz Day to Begin in Cuba

The Cuban celebration for the 2017 International Jazz Day has been opened with a meeting between students from the Higher Institute of Art and Jazz Thelonious Monk, United States.

Cuba was elected as the host country for this celebration, which has been annually organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and by the aforementioned US Higher Institutes of Art and Jazz since 2012.

UNESCO's representative in Cuba, Katherine Muller, highlighted at a press conference the pride with which this island can host this event due to the large number of brilliant Cuban jazz musicians.

She also praised the built-in values of this gender such as the participation and the necessary understanding, the synergy between those who share it, comparable with a democracy.

Muller highlighted the unifying capacity of music, since it enables us to communicate beyond different borders or languages.

The main concert will be held on April 30, at the Gran Teatro de La Habana (Great Theater of Havana), and will be broadcasted live on local television and worldwide.

Artists from Africa, Asia, America and Europe will gather in this show, concluding with the song 'Imagine', by John Lennon, as it has been traditionally sang in all previous editions, but with the particularity in this case of using Cuban percussion instruments to the musical arrangement.

Different world-famous artists will have the possibility to play in this incredible concert such as the US Herbie Hancock, Ambrose Akinmusire, Carl Allen, Regina Carter and Marcus Miller; the Italians Italy Gianluca Petrella; the Russian Igor Butman; Marc Antoine from France and Till Bronner from Germany; as well as the Lebanese Tarek Yamani; Tunisian Dhafer Youssef; Chinese A Bu; Brazilian Ivan Lins ; and Antonio Sanchez from Mexico.

On the Cuban side Chucho Valdes, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Pancho Amat, Cesar Lopez, Bobby Carcasses, Harold Lopez-Nussa and Orlando Valle (Maraca), among others, will enliven the music event.