The post Space reflects on cultural-entrepreneurial ecosystem with a gender focus in Cuba first appeared on Youth Art Fund.

Making women's work in the creative industries visible implies recognizing the collective processes, the spaces of mutual support and the strategies that allow them to sustain creation in contexts that are often challenging.

Thus, since its creation in 2023, the cultural platform Fondo de Arte Joven (FAJ) supports projects led by women working in different contemporary creative fields. It is an accompaniment that seeks to strengthen cultural initiatives with the capacity to generate impact on their protagonists and the environments in which they develop, while exploring new forms of cultural participation and strengthening the social fabric, promoting perspectives of rights, diversity and inclusion in the emerging cultural and creative industries.

Through access to resources, the visibility of their projects and/or creative processes, professional training, and the possibility of connecting and establishing alliances with other essential figures in the cultural ecosystem, each proposal, led by women, has been able to consolidate and transcend local contexts, facilitating the projection of their work inside and outside Cuba.

Here are some examples:

With the creation grant awarded by the FAJ, singer Annys Batista produced her DVD “Annys Batista Live Session”, winner of the Cubadisco 2024 award in the “Medium-length Audiovisual” category.

In June 2024, guitarist Patricia Díaz and lutenist Sofía Pedrera, members of the «Aguas de Marzo» Duo, premiered their first musical production «Gaia» at Havana's Martí Theater in June 2024, as part of FAJ's calls for proposals to support creative projects in the field of music.

It was also possible to carry out the project «Las ensoñaciones del reposo», by visual artist Giselle Lucía Navarro, recent winner, in Paris, of the Bernard Grau Scholarship in sculpture. Her project, supported by the FAJ, comprising five abstract textile and fiber pieces on metallic structures, was exhibited at the 15th Havana Biennial (2025).

One of FAJ's strategic objectives is to finance and support projects that have a positive impact on art education. Thus, the collaboration with artist, curator and teacher Evelynn Alvarez was conceived for the realization of her initiative «Last Chapter of a Beautiful Drama», a program of talks and meetings between artists, curators, teachers and cultural managers, with the aim of opening new ways of learning beyond the classroom.

Read more about this project HERE.

Another fundamental dimension has been the creation of networks and strategic alliances. With this premise in mind, the promotion of the creative-entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a gender focus, has been a cross-cutting element of the networking space «Luz Verde,» established by FAJ since 2025, also conceived as an opportunity for Cuban artists, entrepreneurs, researchers and creators to meet, exchange experiences and cooperate.

Opening paths, sharing tools, and strengthening networks are part of FAJ's strategic objectives. Each project, collaboration, or community that is activated around art must lead, as a fundamental principle, to more women being able to create, empower themselves, and occupy their rightful place in culture for development.

The post Women promoting art and transforming communities with support from the Young Art Fund first appeared on Youth Art Fund.

In a context where cultural consumption tends toward homogenization and immediacy, the National Music Contest -an initiative of the Fondo de Arte Joven (FAJ) supported by UNICEF Cuba- is committed to broadening the sensitive and creative horizons of Cuban teenagers. More than a competitive contest, the project has fostered the creation of an ecosystem that brings together master classes, training sessions and mentoring processes led by key figures of the country's music scene. Throughout its two editions, students between 12 and 18 years old, from 13 provinces, found a space for learning through inclusion and accompaniment.

On the other hand, popular musics have ceased to be the appendix of the academy to position themselves as the north of a map that is expanding more and more strongly. At its center are aligned the technique and an incarnated knowledge of the sound roots capable of recognizing beauty both in the rigor of a score and in the freedom of a download. On February 1, that premise took shape in a list of young performers with academic or self-taught careers, which revealed a paradigm shift in the way of cultivating, transmitting and thinking about music on the island.

The new generation was the title of the concert held within the framework of the 41st International^a edition of the Jazz Plaza International Festival, starring precisely the winners of the first two editions of this event. Chance -or perhaps the urgency of art itself- forced a last-minute change: from the Tito Junco Hall of the Bertolt Brecht Cultural Center to the Ignacio Cervantes Hall, which, turned into a temple for these «little giants», was paradoxically illuminated, while the city was left in darkness. Under the artistic direction of wind multi-instrumentalist Janio Abreu -who has accompanied the Competition since its inception and whose pedagogical work is as relevant as his virtuosity-, and who, in addition to being in charge of several of the arrangements performed during the evening, conceived a staging under the impression of thinking of Cuban genres and jazz as fields of study with the same rigor, complexity and legitimacy as «classical music».

The design of the program, accompanied by musicians of extensive experience -Roldán Carballoso on lute, Adel González on percussion and Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez on double bass- eluded any logic of accumulation to place a subtle dramaturgy, organized in pauses, contrasts and emotional twists and turns. Three for two, by James Rae, opened the concert as a true prelude: the string quintet made up of violinists Eva Lorena Pérez and María del Pilar Pérez, violist José Anthoni Ortiz, cellist and winner María Karla Rifat and maestro Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez, established the listening climate from the very beginning. From that initial contention, Wine and bicycle -a work by Diego Abreu, one of the winners of the competition- unfolded a melody of great delicacy. The piece, sustained by a writing of remarkable pianistic maturity, confirmed that in this new generation age, far from seeming to be an aesthetic limit, imposes itself with the naturalness of those who think music from experience.

The program progressed alternating moments of high technical intensity with areas of expressive withdrawal. At Alborada guajira, The interaction between the young people was vital: guitarists Natalia Hernández and Armando Moreira -both winners of the contest- together with Ihara María Rosales and José Eduardo Rodríguez on the tres, built a complicity that combined dexterity, precision and energy, showing the fluency with which Roldán teaches his students.

Caribbean, by pianist Alejandro Falcón, in an arrangement for four hands performed by Esteban Hernández and Álvaro Pérez, offered timbral and expressive contrast. The play of hands on the keyboard created textures that dialogued with the audience's breathing and provided a moment of cooperation between the performers. For his part, Post and guest, for solo piano, proposed one of those necessary pauses that reorganize the perception of the whole. Ernán López-Nussa's work, interpreted by Álvaro Pérez, with its lucid wink to the imaginary of the silent films of the 1920s, suspended for a moment the impulse of the night to focus listening on the narrative dimension of the instrument.

The same constellation of moderate tempos and nostalgic affections were integrated into this constellation. Cubanita -a work by Aldo López-Gavilán, originally conceived for solo piano as an academic exercise for his daughter Andrea— y Cinema Paradiso, Ennio Morricone's famous theme that accompanies the Italian film of the same name by Giuseppe Tornatore. At Cubanita, the work written by a father for his daughter found its mirror on stage right in the hands of Paola Abreu at the piano and her father Janio on the saxophone. While in Cinema Paradiso we witness the re-reading of the cinematographic reference and its famous soundtrack, enriched by the vibraphone played by the young Elías Alexander Ferrer.

A turning point came with Let's walk, by Félix de Jesús Matos, the only work in the program that incorporated the voice. Its presence activated a different frontality, reinstalling the music in its most direct communicative dimension. From there, the concert resumed the pulse with works of high technical complexity where the individual protagonism emerged within a logic of shared interpretation, with moments of special pianistic lucidity, such as the one assumed by Ronny Yunior López in Tumbao pal Benny.

The concert, far from any historiographic rigidity, also showed its commitment to Cuba's musical heritage by quoting Alberto Socarrás, who was the first musician in the history of Latin jazz to record a flute solo. Socarrás was heard that night in his versions of Caravan -the famous standard composed in 1936 by Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington -and You and I, both transcribed by Abreu himself. At Caravan, Alessa Blanco Bencomo (flute) and Vismar Suárez (saxophone) not only demonstrated mastery in their performance but also sufficient interpretative maturity to navigate the rhythmic-expressive architecture of this work. While flutist Darío Cuba, fully aware of his place in this lineage, played his instrument with the responsibility of sustaining a living tradition.

In this framework, in which the stage is revealed as the place where musical knowledge circulates and accumulates, Give it a chance was the piece chosen to close the concert, precisely with the participation of all the musicians. More than an emphatic closing, the piece functioned as a meeting space where individualities came together, and in that collective dialogue a truth is manifested: what is, ultimately, Cuban music, if not a constant return to the origins? Not a nostalgic return, but a return to rewrite, to update, to make room for new voices. This is the threshold of this concert, in which parents, teachers and event managers integrated in the same atmosphere, corroborated that the development of the young artist is not a solitary act. The «major talent» is at the service of the «emerging talent», from the generosity of those who know that music only transcends if it is delivered with affection.

Havana, February 2026

The post The new generation first appeared on Youth Art Fund.

Sometimes, in order to move forward, it is necessary to retrace the path. Man knows it; the artist knows it. In that eagerness, Back to the village, the most recent recording by Cuban composer and pianist Ernesto Oliva (Guantánamo, 1988), crystallizes a poetics that understands return as a synonym of movement. The constant coming and going of a soundscape runs between rhythmic patterns, interpretative gestures and ways of saying; between formal structures treated with elegant skill and a chamber conception of the repertoire. The village, more than a place, becomes a matrix from which the musical discourse acquires order and radiates its influence towards other geographies.

Conceived as audiovisual, Back to the village is the result of collective work. Here converge wills that conceive creation also as a process of accompaniment. The Fondo de Arte Joven (FAJ), a cultural platform founded in 2023 in the heat of the 38th edition of Jazz Plaza, whose Creation Grant -granted to Ernesto Oliva in 2024- made viable the materialization of the phonogram, which bet on the validation of a sound thesis whose core lies in the expansion of languages and the responsibility of artistic work. This bet found a correlate in the high quality of a production recorded live at Abdala Studios, a space capable of assuming, with technical solvency, the complexity of the challenge.

As part of the 41st edition of the Jazz Plaza International Festival and the 21st edition of its International Colloquium «Leonardo Acosta in Memoriam» the DVD Back to the village was presented on January 26 at the Fábrica de Arte Cubano, in a panel dedicated to the exchange on contemporary musical creation. The festival -a space of convergence where jazz broadens its stylistic contours to dialogue with diverse traditions, memories and musical writings- offered the propitious context to place the proposal in a larger framework: that of the musics that assume their relationship with the autochthonous without renouncing to their universal vocation. 

Oliva's work is placed at that crossroads, and his catalog sustains the tension that emanates from his native land and his academic training, essential pillars of his creation. His intervention allowed an approach to the motivations and decisions that nurture the project, while the voices of Lorenzo Suarez, founder and Strategic Advisor of the FAJ, and musicians Olivia Rodriguez (double bass) and Jesus Estrada (percussion), provided complementary views from the cultural management and interpretive praxis. Under the moderation of musicologist Neris González Bello -president of the Colloquium and of Bis Music, whose label accompanies this issue- the exchange highlighted the importance of maintaining spaces of mediation where music is contextualized, problematized and recorded as an act of socialization of a creative process that links thought and experience.

The story told by its protagonists made it possible to understand in this DVD the continuity of My village (Egrem, 2020), Ernesto Oliva's first phonogram conceived as an explicit homage to Guantánamo and to the universes that have shaped his musical imaginary. If that work started from piano writing to unfold in the quartet format, Back to the village is expanded through the incorporation of an extended format that integrates the Camerata Romeu, an emblematic group of the island's orchestral sphere, recognized for its interpretative rigor, under the direction of maestro Zenaida Romeu. The decision responded to an expressive need. The timbre expansion favored the re-reading of traditional genres -changüí, nengón, kiribá-, articulated with contemporary compositional procedures and with a string writing that directly refers to concert music.

In Ernesto Oliva's hands, the piano - historically alien to the territories of Guaso - ceases to be a black-tie guest and becomes a chronicler of the village. Without imposing its concertante weight, it acts as a mediator that transcribes the rhythmic patterns of the tres to the keyboard by means of a writing attentive to the inheritance. A percussion set specially designed to reconstruct the Guantanamo soundscape is added to this narrative: textures and accents that evoke the pulse of the land and the acoustic memory of the environment. Within this plot, the Camerata Romeu does not assume a secondary role, nor does it operate as a «harmonic mattress». The orchestra is involved. It is, in itself, a great expressive mass that intends the musical story. The consequence: a thought that assumes hybridity as the first condition of the Cuban being.

The titles that make up Back to the village articulate a system of references that precedes and orients listening. In them operates a very specific way of naming where everyday speech, the memory of the eastern region and wit activate specific emotions, recognizable from the first enunciation. Expressions such as Café changüiao, Sonengueao o Son del guateque situate the experience of gender as social practices. Other titles -Chipa’ e tren, Kiribañingo- condense, from their own sonority, rhythmic and gestural impulses that refer to a certain corporeality of music, closer to the sensorial memory than to the literalness of its meaning.

In a different register, Pa’ Pastorita a guarareaux?, inspired by Roberto Baute's work of the same name, introduces a game of intertextual allusions, while Pa’ ti and Interludio...and your rain They shift the focus to an intimate, overwhelming writing, as if they wanted to confess past, present or future loves. The journey ends with Canenga?, The title is an open interrogation that returns music to its playful and participatory dimension. Rather than concluding the discourse, the title invites to exchange and keeps the answer in suspense, inviting to prolong the sound experience.

The concert premiere took place on January 31 at the Basílica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asís. The architecture of the space -its stone, its height, its memory- welcomed a meeting that progressed unhurriedly, guided by the words of Ernesto Oliva himself, who traced, between work and work, the emotional map that gave rise to the project. Each explanation, each thanks, each memory, narrowed the distance between stage and audience, until listening became an act of complicity.

The twelve pieces of the album were then deployed in their entirety and there the return took the form of a performative gesture: the audience responded, called, accompanied, became participative, retaking the mood of the original recording. Music recovered its original condition as a social act, as an event that takes place between bodies and not only in front of them.

That spirit found one of its most moving images shortly before the closing, with a miniature that Ernesto usually introduces in his presentations and that derived from the exercises written for his students. The little cowbell -the title of the work- demands that someone uninitiated in the art of piano playing dares to go on stage to imitate, according to the composer's indications, the rhythm of the percussion instrument. Fidel Camilo Torres Fernández, the brave child who played for the audience that night, embodied the most honest dimension of the gesture. The closeness of the two - stripped of all spectacularity - condensed the profound meaning of the village; to return to it is to return home. And to do so through music implies opening it so that others may enter, listen and -even if only for an instant- recognize it as their own.

The post Back to the village, back to home first appeared on Youth Art Fund.

The show, organized by the Fondo de Arte Joven (FAJ), will be under the artistic direction of Janio Abreu. The renowned multi-instrumentalist, composer and pedagogue has conceived a repertoire that dialogues between Latin jazz and Cuban popular music.

Fourteen young winners of the two editions of the National Music Competition - promoted by FAJ and UNICEF Cuba since 2024 - will share the stage with outstanding musicians of the Cuban scene, including Roldán Carballoso (lute), Adel González (percussion) and Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez (double bass). New performers representing the most recent generations will also join this event, bringing freshness and diversity to the evening's program.

As a homecoming, the FAJ celebrates its third anniversary in the context of the Jazz Plaza International Festival, the same space where it was born in January 2023. This coincidence reaffirms the natural character of an alliance that has grown alongside the country's young talent.

Since its creation, the platform has promoted creative projects and has contributed to the development of emerging art in Cuba, accompanying new voices on their professional path.

Interpreters:

Alvaro Pérez Ruiz (piano), Paola Abreu Falcón (piano), Esteban Hernández Toppe (piano), Félix de Jesús Matos Martínez (piano / vocals), Ronny Yunior López Vega (piano), Natalia Hernández Delgado (guitar), Alessa Blanco Bencomo (flute), Darío Cuba Hernández (flute), Vismar Suárez Gómez (saxophone), Diego Alejandro Abreu González (piano), María Karla Rifat Rodríguez (violoncello), Laura Diaz La O (violin), Elías Alexander Ferrer Duverger (vibraphone), Alejandro Sánchez Véliz (saxophone)

Special guests:

Roldán Carballoso (lute), Adel González (percussion), Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez (double bass), Ihara María Rosales Imbert (tres), José Eduardo Rodriguez Méndez (tres), Elizabeth Blanco Martínez (violin), Kamila Cepero Silva (viola), José Eduardo Rodriguez Méndez (tres), Elizabeth Blanco Martínez (violin), Kamila Cepero Silva (viola)

MUSICAL DIRECTION: Janio Abreu

The post Fondo de Arte Joven celebrates emerging talent at Jazz Plaza with the concert “La nueva generación”.” first appeared on Youth Art Fund.

The project was born out of the desire to connect mid-level professional students with active agents of the Cuban contemporary art circuit. Through talks, studio visits and open conversations, “Last chapter of a nice drama” sought to complement the curricula with direct, generational and human experiences.

Despite my crises with pedagogy, I am always grateful for how much I have learned from the students,» explains Evelynn Alvarez. From that awareness of joint improvement, I conceived and articulated this proposal."

Alvarez, who has been a member of San Alejandro's faculty since 2015, has been involved in teaching and accompanying young creators for years. On this occasion, she saw FAJ as a natural ally: “I knew about FAJ's work through its grantees. I have seen its impact on the careers of the authors I follow. So it wasn't hard to see the partnership and I applied for one of its opportunities.

The first part of the program took place during the summer term of 2024 and coincided with the students“ diploma work stages, a time that is usually a time of rest or concentration on personal projects. However, the response was enthusiastic. ”A group of students decided to approach outside the classroom, the implications of pursuing a career as a visual artist in Cuba. In the midst of idleness, keeping a teenager motivated with these topics surpassed all my goals," Alvarez confesses.

For the students, the experience was transformative. Suamy Hernández, one of the participants, describes the workshop as “a deep immersion in the art world that surpassed all my expectations”. The young woman emphasizes that visiting the studios of different artist collectives and talking with curators “opened her eyes to a universe of possibilities”.

“I understood that art is not a solitary path. Collaboration and exchange are fundamental to growth. I learned from the generosity of artists who shared their failures and successes, and the importance of persistence and authenticity,” he adds.

The value of generational exchange

FAJ's strategic objectives include financing and supporting projects, offering tools and networks that strengthen the country's cultural fabric. In Alvarez's words, “exchanges between generations are essential, but increasingly difficult to achieve in our context. Heartfelt thanks to the Fondo de Arte Joven, which dedicates resources - not only financial - to consolidate these spaces.”

For established artists such as Gabriela Reyna, also a teacher at San Alejandro and a collaborator in the project, this dynamic was equally enriching. “Sharing my studio with the students was special: they were able to see the more personal side of the artist. I recognize myself in them, as I did when I was a student.” Reyna emphasizes that the exchange was two-way: “They discover the universe of professional art, and I learn from their fresh looks. It's a gift to be able to share and nurture each other.”

“The Young Art Fund has become an invaluable reference. It integrates diverse voices and shows that art grows when we share knowledge. I wish there were more spaces like this in Cuba,” he said.

Train, inspire, connect

To culminate an experience such as “Last chapter of a nice drama”, and conditioned by talks and exchanges with young visual artists, Evelynn Alvarez structured from her vision as a teacher the group show “El Motivo”, exhibited at the Acacia Gallery in Havana.

Eight artists who participated in exchanges with students, including Suamy Hernández, made up the roster of this exhibition, thus closing a cycle that generated opportunities for self-improvement, connections and inspiration.

Alvarez uses the term «happy ending» to refer to the sample, in which statement can also be read as «a curatorial exercise that operates with the identification of leitmotivsEach piece exposes core recurrences of the author throughout his actions. Likewise, there is another constant that directs the selection of works: each piece exposes the author's considerations on the art phenomenon». In this way, the workshop closed a cycle and generated opportunities for students to improve themselves.

For her, leading this process has meant more than just a professional achievement: “I took on the workshop. Last chapter of a beautiful drama as a closure. A ‘closure’ in the popular sense that expresses the great potential of something; but also a closing of a stage, both for those students who were then finishing their Professional Middle Level, as well as in my practice today expanded to entrepreneurship. Hence the conclusive aura that led me to revisit works and ended up being a kind of necessary filter to continue flowing”.

The project “Last chapter of a nice drama” is an example of the impact that collaboration between an initiative like FAJ and art education can have. Convinced that art, like education, is built in community, the platform seeks to weave networks, strengthen communities and give voice to a new generation of Cuban artists who dream of transforming their environment through creation.

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Eleven musicians in training, both academically trained and self-taught, from various provinces of the country, who won awards in the competition, shared the stage with renowned musicians of international renown, opening a door to emerging talent in the Cuban musical context.

A select repertoire of Cuban music, arranged by Janio Abreu, musical director of the initiative, thrilled those who attended the performance by Natalia Hernández and Armando Moreira (guitars), Paola Abreu, Esteban Hernández, Álvaro Pérez, Félix Matos, Arian Gounelas, and Diego Abreu (piano), María Karla Rifat (cello), Darío Cuba (flute), and Vismar Suárez (saxophone).

The premiere of works composed by the award winners also took place, accompanied by prestigious Cuban musicians such as Roldán Carballoso (tres and lute), Adel González (percussion), Lázaro Rivero “El Fino” (double bass), Fabio Abreu (drums), Alejandro Falcón (piano), and singer Annys Batista, winner of the FAJ call for creative music projects.

The second edition of the National Music Competition was announced in July 2025, as part of the celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the United Nations, and received 56 entries from almost every province in the country.

The National Music Competition represents the commitment of FAJ and UNICEF Cuba to promoting culture, fostering encounters between several generations of musicians in a friendly atmosphere of mentoring and mutual development.

An opportunity to coordinate our efforts with those of organizations committed to children and culture for development.

The post Grand Concert 02 edition National Music Competition first appeared on Youth Art Fund.

As a solid bet for the professional future of Cuban symphonic music, the Orchestral Academy was created in 2023., The program is an initiative of the Lyceum Orchestra of Havana, with funding from the FAJ, in conjunction with important players on the international symphonic scene such as the Balthasar Neumann Academy, the Esteban Salas Musical Heritage Cabinet, the Chair of Sacred Music at the Padre Félix Varela Cultural Center and the Cuban Institute of Music.

Today, it is showing remarkable results in lhe training of young orchestral musicians, under the guidance of national and international maestros. Its fruits are manifested in young performers who broaden their professional vision, enrich the collective interpretation, and contribute to a more diverse and resilient musical environment, exploring the meaning of each work through an authentic interpretive practice, mutually supportive on stage, with high artistic quality.

The academy, conceived as a quarry for the Lyceum Orchestra of Havana, allows high school and university students to share stage and music stand with professional musicians, in a pedagogical model inherited from the great European orchestras. This is how José Antonio Méndez Padrón (Pepito), director of the orchestra and leader of the project, explains it:

«We were inspired by the model of orchestral academies such as those in Berlin or Paris. The idea is that young musicians not only prepare themselves technically, but also learn directly how a professional orchestra works: its phrasing, its breathing, its rehearsal rhythm.»

Its first study program, promoted by the FAJ, encouraged the systematic exchange with Cuban and international professors with vast experience in teaching and performing in orchestral ensembles, in order to complement the training of twelve young fretted string players, selected after an audition process.

This initial support allowed the academy to grow quantitatively -in number of students and sections- and qualitatively, with a notable impact on the artistic and intellectual maturation of its participants.

«Thanks to the Fondo de Arte Joven we are able to have the academy today. The first impulse is always decisive. Since then we have been able to take a leap forward, not only in technique, but also in artistic vision,» Méndez commented.

A PARALLEL SCHOOL

The Academy does not replace the regular training of the national arts education system, but complements it with real orchestral practices, individual lessons and personalized mentoring. This combination has been key for musicians like Kevin Bouza, 23, a French Horn student at the University of the Arts of Cuba (ISA)..

«The academy is a big step in my career. They prepare us for professional life, and we learn from working together, not only in technique, but also in ethics and camaraderie.»

For Ana Gabriela León, 19 years old, who graduated from the middle level in the viola specialty at the National School of Arts (ENA), the challenge has been twofold: to combine her studies with the professional demands of the orchestra. However, she recognizes the growth she has experienced.

«It has taught me to manage my nerves, to always be ready. I feel I now have the tools to take on auditions, master classes and new opportunities with more confidence,» she said.

AN INSTITUTIONAL MODEL

Regarding the particularities of management, access to resources and networking, the coordinator of the Academy and manager of the Orchestra, Gabriela Rojas, highlights the fundamental role of FAJ not only in the creation of the Academy, but also through its participation in special collaborations, such as the concert with the outstanding pianist Marcos Madrigal., who is also the platform's musical director.

“FAJ was fundamental in the promotion and coordination with the media. We were coming from very intense staging with Actea and their support was key for everything to flow and for us to have a full house.»

The concert was not only a tribute to Madrigal, distinguished as a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres de France, but also a litmus test for the academicians, who were integrated into the orchestra in a binomial format, together with experienced players.

«That partner work is essential,» Rojas says. «Students learn how to play in section, how to read the conductor, how to be attentive to the soloist. These are skills that are not acquired only in the classroom.».

Elias Ferrer, The 18-year-old percussionist, who graduated from ENA's intermediate level, sums it up clearly:

«It was a burst of emotions to participate in that concert. You're next to incredible musicians, accompanying someone like Marcos Madrigal... it's something that marks you.»

BETTING ON THE FUTURE

The academy also emerged as a response to a complex context. Emigration has emptied the ranks of many musical groups on the island, and the Lyceum Orchestra has been no exception. According to director José Méndez himself, more than 80 % of its musicians have left the country in the last three years:

«Filling that void is a tremendous challenge. And thanks to the Academy, little by little, we are training those who can fill those spaces.»

It is not just about filling positions. The Academy seeks to build integral artists, musicians with critical thinking, curiosity and sensitivity to the social and historical context of the works they perform.

«It's not just about technique anymore,» the conductor points out. «Young people want to know who the composer was, how he lived, what country he was in, how that influences the work. That's being an artist.»

Gabriela Rojas also highlights the stimulating values of the initiative:

“Beyond the technical preparation, the benefits are mutual. The presence of the young people has revitalized the orchestra itself. «They bring energy, enthusiasm, a desire to learn and do new things. That's oxygenating.».

In a country where opportunities are scarce and young talent seeks horizons beyond its borders, the existence of spaces such as the Havana Orchestral Academy -and the projects that make it possible, such as the FAJ- represents a light among the shadows.

«We want to leave an imprint on these kids,» Rojas concludes. «That they can look back and say, ‘That's where I learned what it means to be a musician.’ And if that happens, then it will have all been worth it.»

The post A Quarry of the Future: the impulse of the Fondo de Arte Joven to the Havana Orchestral Academy first appeared on Youth Art Fund.

This project, beneficiary of the call launched by the Fondo de Arte Joven (FAJ) for visual artists in 2023, gathers approximately 45 snapshots taken in the town of Bejucal, known for its history and cultural traditions.

Motivated by nostalgia, by longing, and by the passing of time in this city, Ortiz preferred to enhance the narrative through ambiguity and mystery in the images, from its people, as a mixture between reality and fiction, thus forming a photographic essay that he developed over four years.

 «I felt that my approach to this town was through a kind of rather poetic reflection, because I felt that the dimension of time there changed, it was very strange to me, in a much calmer, emptier and much slower way. Also from the photographic point of view, let's say that Cuban photography is very Havana-centric, almost all people photograph Havana and that's what is best known.»

«Bitácora del olvido» came to delight all the senses and has taken advantage of every space of interaction with the public. The photographs that make up this material are exhibited at the Center for the Development of Visual Arts in Havana. The exhibition, of the same name, will remain open to the public until next September.

FAJ also celebrates the fact that this project is part of the traveling exhibition «Behind the Photobooks», which takes place at the Museu de Arte Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil.

FAJ's work is based on accompanying creative processes that later acquire a life of their own, generating a cultural impact beyond our platform. Projects such as «Bitácora del olvido» demonstrate how an idea supported in its beginnings can grow, transform and fly with its own wings, enriching the artistic panorama inside and outside Cuba.

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