With Cubadisco 20-21 upon us, the challenges and achievements of the Cuban recording industry are once again up for debate. After a difficult year due to the pandemic, the cancellation or postponement of events, including this one, as well as logistical problems closely linked to the domestic and foreign markets, Cubadisco is finally taking place virtually.
Bringing together the best productions of 2020 and 2021, the event's offerings are perhaps the most dicey in its history, not only because of the quantity and quality of nominations, but also for the reasons mentioned above, which will undoubtedly mark the course of a fair with important and very well-deserved media allies, that will test a mechanism that is clearly worthwhile, although late, in the national scene.
Among the participants is the Cuban television channel Clave, a powerful musical broadcasting tool that has undergone a profound revolution since covid-19 hit the country, redesigning its programming for the event, long before the Cubadisco kick-off, May 15.
Cubadisco will also be given visibility on the websites and digital platforms of the Ministry of Culture, the Cuban Institute of Music and other entities affiliated with the country's cultural system, for local audiences, as well as those who wish to access the programming from anywhere in the world.
Nonetheless, from a purely competitive and musical perspective, national production and its view of the market continue to owe us proposals that better reflect a much more comprehensive environment, in which an eclectic and functional approach is not the Achilles heel of the industry in these times. The promotion of recordings and audiovisuals in areas that also need to be introduced in other contexts continues to be a pending issue in the country, but from the point of view of the record companies, not of their protagonists. The absence of chamber orchestra productions alarms those of us who defend the genre, especially considering that nominations reflect two years of work in a country where this movement is extremely important. The same fate has befallen choirs, with no recordings nominated in the 2020-2021 period, as is also the case for Cuban symphony orchestras, both in the capital and across the rest of the country.
Along these lines, we could specifically mention, three nominated productions in which the National Symphony Orchestra participated: Lecuona en La Habana (Egrem), Cuba por Coplas (Colibrí) and Cuba the legacy: Aurelio de la Vega & Yalil Guerra (RYCY Productions). Nonetheless, the industry still owes the Sinfónica Nacional a recording, as the leading exponent of Cuban symphony music, featuring the orchestra as the principal performer, not accompanying other projects, no matter how interesting they are from all points of view.
Likewise, we are still waiting for a long-overdue album by the National Concert Band and the Orfeón Santiago, to mention some of the recordings that have been postponed.
Trova, always thriving and innovative, could have been better reflected in new releases, which, logically, would have translated into more nominations. But this, and perhaps other issues, will be addressed in future articles.
