CUBA-US: Music, Sport Provide a Break In Political Conflict

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Mar 25 1999 (IPS) - Music and baseball – two great passions of the people of Cuba and the United States – have brought a refreshing change to the long-soured relations between the two countries.

There always has been mutual admiration on the part of both nations for each others musical and sporting prowess- despite the ideological abyss that has separated them for four decades.

“What we’ve had all these years is a love-hate relationship”, one government official acknowledged privately.

And for Mario Bernal, a Cuban rock musician “Art, music, and sports should be above political differences.”

Bernal was one of nearly 100 Cuban and U.S. artists who came together this week at a creative workshop called “Music Bridges- Puente Musical.” They composed songs that will be performed at concert Sunday night – the highlight of a cooperation project between the U.S. and Cuban musicians.

The workshop united artists across the whole range of music – rock n’ roll, jazz, pop, trova, son and classical music.

The director of the Cuban Music Institute, Alicia Perea, stressed “the human exchange” had united artists from both countries “with common roots and reciprocal influences”.

Alan Roy Scott, a U.S. composer with 20 years of experience, said that, after trips all over the world, he had become convinced that music was a powerful tool to build bridges between people.

Scott is the founder of Music Bridges Around the World, and chose Havana as the site for the fifth project of musical cooperation. Previous ones have taken place in Russia, Indonesia, Rumania and Ireland.

“To sit down and compose together is one of the most basic forms of communication”, and art can reach places that words cannot, Scott told reporters before the launching of the workshop.

Weeks before traveling to fulfill “an old dream”, he said that his motivation was the same one that had taken him to the former Soviet Union. “We all share the same planet. Music is a great means of communication, and it reaches a level that transcends everything else,” he said.

The collective creations sessions, which are taking place in cultural institutions or in the homes of the artists, include the participation of the queen of soul, Gladys Knight, the guitarist Peter Frampton, the leader of the legendary Fleetwood Mac group, Mick Fleetwood, composer and arranger Burt Bacharach and singer Bonnie Raitt among others.

Among the Cubans are Chucho Valdes, the director of Irakere, the songwriters Silvio Rodriguez and Carlos Varela, salsa musicians Alberto Tosca and Isaac Delgado and the prestigious composer Jose Maria Vitier.

The triumph of the “Buena Vista Social Club” at the Grammys, awarded by the U.S. recording industry, increased considerably the interest among artists in the U.S. in Cuban musical production, Bonnie Raitt observed.

Sunday’s concert will take place on the same day as an exhibition baseball game between a Cuban team and the Baltimore Orioles from the United States before 55,000 fans at the Latin American stadium.

Both events have been long in planning – three years in the case of baseball game – and constitute the first significant attempt at rapprochement since President Bill Clinton announced in January a slight easing of the tight embargo the United States imposed against Cuba 40 years ago.

Excited baseball fans have been scrambling for tickets to Sunday’s game – the first time a Major League side has been in Cuba since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.

For now, the discussion is focused on the extent to which the Cuban team will be affected with the return of wooden baseball bats, replaced for many years by much lighter aluminum models.

“For the Cuban team, it’s like suicide”, grumbled one fan .