It’s been a long day: up at 3 a.m. in a dingy airport hotel in Miami (not difficult to be up so early; I was abuzz with nervous energy, could hardly sleep) to catch the 4:00 airport shuttle (whose radio was randomly tuned to the familiar strains of Classical MPR)—early, to be safe—y sí muy temprano era. I got to the gate with more than two hours to spare—spent flipping through my Lonely Planet, Cuba Absolutely, and my Spanish-English dictionary, and emptying my bowels no fewer than three times. When it finally came time to board, I was as ready as I was going to be.
Called (woke) Karen (mi esposa) from the plane, told her I’d never been so nervous in my whole life, which was probably true: not stage fright nervous or Holy shit, am I gonna die alone nervous, but the physical kind of nervous that comes from too little sleep, a jolt of caffeine, and the boarding door closing on a charter flight to an island nation with whom your government has severed diplomatic relations going on how many decades, I don’t even know for sure—I’m entering La Habana armed with a map, a snack pack my wife prepared for me, and my gringo ignorance. And microphones, a spool of cables, and an audio interface that looks like a sophisticated explosive device. What could go wrong?
I won't wax poetic about the flight: it was sunny, it was short, and when we disembarked we were in Cuba instead of Miami. I mean, it was a flight. Pronto: first impressions of la isla:
1. We landed, and there was a stray dog on the tarmac. What the fuck?
As for the airport, that was sort of it. I’ve lived in Indonesia, spent time in the Philippines: the humidity, the paint-dryingly slow lines at passport control, the insufferable American tourists complaining about the long wait the whole time, demanding such patience one feels instant canonization must await on the other side of the door—none of this felt new.
The holy shit moment comes after baggage claim. (NB. Qué alivio that I was able to collect my luggage and get through without having to explain all my gear—en español.) Exit the airport: throng of humans, some holding name placards, most eagerly craning their necks (cf. the Philippines), the parking lot a cacophony of Detroit classics and Soviet-era boxes in various states of improvised functionality—and a friendly mustachioed face emerges from nowhere and greets me by name. Es Jorge Beritán, un agente del Festival quien ha venido para recogerme. Y viene con un choffer: a 1950s-handsome young Cubano with what I imagine is the equivalent in Spanish of what Travolta’s crew talks like in Grease.
And he drives like a spectacular asshole—I love it—honking like the world is ending and shouting constructive criticism to his fellow motorists as he passes them. The highway from the airport to Havana is a black cloud of carbon monoxide that beats any place I’ve ever seen.
Llegamos a la casa particular.1 My host, Emilio, is a gem. A deep-baritoned silver fox, were he not also bubbling with such infectious joie de vivre so as to be nearly cartoonish. His ninth-floor condo overlooking the Malecón is, by Cuban standards (by Brooklyn standards too), utter luxury. The views, of the Straits of Florida to the north, and sweeping eastward over—and here’s a moment to savor: Emilio taking me out to the balcony, surveying the city, and saying with the deepest satisfaction filling his lungs—La Habana, are resplendent.
I
need Cuban currency (CUCs, not pesos—let’s
not even start…), so Emilio walks me to the “famosísimo”
Hotel Nacional.
We enter, and take the scenic route from the lobby to the currency exchange; there’s a wait, and I’m able to persuade Emilio to go ahead home, I’ll be fine. Cambio el dinero, entonces camino poco más, pero estoy muy cansado, y regreso a la casa. I ration out my money for the week, unpack, then lay down to try to take a nap, expecting a long night ahead of me.
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| El Hotel Nacional |
We enter, and take the scenic route from the lobby to the currency exchange; there’s a wait, and I’m able to persuade Emilio to go ahead home, I’ll be fine. Cambio el dinero, entonces camino poco más, pero estoy muy cansado, y regreso a la casa. I ration out my money for the week, unpack, then lay down to try to take a nap, expecting a long night ahead of me.
I
can’t sleep.
* * *
Jorge,
y el choffer—who tells me (as best as
I can understand in his Travoltified Cubano) that his name is Chao (Shao?
Xiao?), but only on the job (like, it’s his nickname?), that it’s short
for—Xiaolin? (at which point, I’ve given up)—but his real name is… I didn’t
catch it, tried to repeat it, he tells me, Pues,
igual—I’ll stick with Chao—Jorge and Chao pick me up for this evening’s
concert and another músico too: Ricardo
Cuadros, a Colombian guitarist, now living in Argentina, who’s playing on
Wednesday night.
We
arrive at La Basílica Menor de San Francisco de Asís about an hour early. This is one of Havana's most prominent venues for classical music, and one of several venues the festival will be using this week. It's where my music will be performed on Tuesday night, and I'm excited: it's one of the most beautiful rooms, both visually and acoustically, that I'll have had the chance to work in.
Ricardo and I enter with Jorge before doors open, and he introduces us to everyone like we’re royalty. After the rounds, todavía hay mucho tiempo, and Ricardo still has to change money, so we spend some time strolling Habana Vieja2 chatting and looking for a casa de cambio. Ricardo’s much more patient with my mediocre Spanish (for now; I confide to him that la verdad es que sólo entiendo un poco de lo que dicen, pero no quiero siempre molestarles con no entiendo, otra vez por favor, mas despacio por favor—I think this will be a self-fulfilling prophecy by evening’s end)—than Jorge and Chao, who pretty much just wind up and go and buena suerte. We talk some shop, and Ricardo tells me about the robust contemporary music scene in Buenos Aires—full houses for the most popular living composers, and he starts dropping names: Reich. Lachenmann. Carter. Sciarrino. Davidovsky. Vale, vive en Argentina, no en Cuba, but after Sage had encouraged me to bring CDs—of my music, but of other living American composers as well, because, he says, the musicians I meet won’t have really encountered much modern American music since, like, Copland… well, I have to admit to being a little embarrassed: I won’t be Prometheus bringing Music for 18 Musicians to the Cuban people after all.
Ricardo and I enter with Jorge before doors open, and he introduces us to everyone like we’re royalty. After the rounds, todavía hay mucho tiempo, and Ricardo still has to change money, so we spend some time strolling Habana Vieja2 chatting and looking for a casa de cambio. Ricardo’s much more patient with my mediocre Spanish (for now; I confide to him that la verdad es que sólo entiendo un poco de lo que dicen, pero no quiero siempre molestarles con no entiendo, otra vez por favor, mas despacio por favor—I think this will be a self-fulfilling prophecy by evening’s end)—than Jorge and Chao, who pretty much just wind up and go and buena suerte. We talk some shop, and Ricardo tells me about the robust contemporary music scene in Buenos Aires—full houses for the most popular living composers, and he starts dropping names: Reich. Lachenmann. Carter. Sciarrino. Davidovsky. Vale, vive en Argentina, no en Cuba, but after Sage had encouraged me to bring CDs—of my music, but of other living American composers as well, because, he says, the musicians I meet won’t have really encountered much modern American music since, like, Copland… well, I have to admit to being a little embarrassed: I won’t be Prometheus bringing Music for 18 Musicians to the Cuban people after all.
Habana
Vieja is beautiful. The architecture
and cityscape are so marvelously bizarre, with baroque and art deco staring
each other awkwardly in the face as if perpetually frozen the morning after a drunken one
night stand. Emilio had warned me that los
callejeros te van a molestar, and, yeah, he wasn’t lying, but it’s no big
deal; I had read that a polite but firm refusal should do the trick in this
famously safe and civil city, and that seems to be as advertised too.
Por último, el concierto. Pues, shame on me, supongo, for expecting—well, I don’t know, really, what I was expecting, aside from the aforementioned Prometheus fantasy (I really did bring two copies of 18)—but I certainly didn’t expect to be as impressed as I was. The festival is extremely well-organized; the program (music by composers all new to me) was, if uneven, fundamentally strong across the board, and likewise the performances. The audience is big—hard to guess exactly how many, as Jorge has seated Ricardo, me, and other festival participants (I also meet the Spanish composer Anna Bofill) in the first few rows, but at least several dozen strong, and maybe pushing 150 or more. In what I guess is an extension of the Dig how Cuba has thrived, albeit kind of bizarrely, despite being so isolated trope that I’ve read and heard more than once, I can’t help but think, How is this possible? that there’s such a flourishing, sophisticated contemporary music scene—IN CUBA?
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| La Basílica Menor de San Francisco de Asís |
Por último, el concierto. Pues, shame on me, supongo, for expecting—well, I don’t know, really, what I was expecting, aside from the aforementioned Prometheus fantasy (I really did bring two copies of 18)—but I certainly didn’t expect to be as impressed as I was. The festival is extremely well-organized; the program (music by composers all new to me) was, if uneven, fundamentally strong across the board, and likewise the performances. The audience is big—hard to guess exactly how many, as Jorge has seated Ricardo, me, and other festival participants (I also meet the Spanish composer Anna Bofill) in the first few rows, but at least several dozen strong, and maybe pushing 150 or more. In what I guess is an extension of the Dig how Cuba has thrived, albeit kind of bizarrely, despite being so isolated trope that I’ve read and heard more than once, I can’t help but think, How is this possible? that there’s such a flourishing, sophisticated contemporary music scene—IN CUBA?
The
concert begins with Móvil III for
flute and piano by Harold Gramatges, whose work has been programmed to
commemorate the fifth anniversary of his death. It’s a strong piece,
demonstrating a much keener awareness of Western modernism than I had expected.
The sonic techniques written for both instruments, but especially for the
flute, are executed with a sure hand by both composer and performers; the
dialogue between the two instruments is very theatrical and devolves to a
moment of camp when the flautist lunges towards the pianist, who has started taunting
him with a maraca, grabs the maraca from his hand and throws it violently to
the ground, broken shards flying into the audience. Unnecessary, I think, but
all told, the piece makes a very strong first impression for the week in front
of me. I realize that I’ve been so focused on simply traveling to Cuba that I
hadn’t allowed room for the familiar pangs of creative/professional
insecurity that come with being surrounded by new colleagues in such intense
concentration as a new music festival provides, but I’m suddenly feeling the pressure
to bring it.
The
concert, which is the first of this festival’s twenty-seventh season, is
impressively ambitious. Three distinct parts: chamber music, works for string
orchestra, and choral music, featuring the jaw-droppingly excellent Schola
Cantorum Carolina, directed by Alina Orraca. The Schola performs three quite
complicated scores entirely from memory. The merciful 6:00p start time
notwithstanding, as the concert goes on, I think I’ve never before felt less fatigue
through a performance on so little sleep. And I’m especially energized by the
final work on the program, La
Aporrumbeosis by Guido López Gavilán, the director of the festival and of
the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Cuba, as well as an active composer (and,
incidentally, a neighbor of Emilio). The piece is soul- and booty-shaking, with—and you need to set aside your high school show choir
biases aside for a moment—some choreography, which complements the music
exquisitely, never feeling like a gimmick. The five soloists are a revelation,
especially the tenor who emerges like a sacerdote
possessed to the front of the stage. Maestro Gavilán’s score is terrific:
sophisticated, expressive, visceral.
I
can thrill to the discoveries of this evening alone for the rest of
the week.
* * *
After
the concert, back to Vedado, and I haven’t had much of a proper meal all day: a
bagel at the Miami airport and occasional handfuls from Karen’s snack pack, and
if I forgo dinner, será un problema.
I seek out a paladar—one of Havana’s
privately run restaurants, operating straight out of the proprietor’s home—and
the one I stumble into is Los Amigos, a short walk from Emilio’s, and the paladar featured on the Cuba episode
Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, which
I had watched prior to arriving on my Mom’s recommendation. I know this will be
one of the most exciting anecdotes of my trip for her.
I
enjoy a very fine meal of grilled fish, rice and beans, beets, and yucca, and a
glass of Cuban rum. And la dueña herself
makes an appearance—the gravelly élan of her voice splits my ears before I look
up and recognize her from the show.
Belly
full and second wind caught, now I want to go hear some jazz. The club that Lonely Planet and Cuba Absolutely have whetted my appetite to check out is La Zorra y
El Cuervo, but it’s only 9:40 and
they don’t open until 10, with the first set starting at 10:30. So I think
maybe I’ll walk to the Hotel Nacional again, look at some of the art I noticed
hanging on the walls earlier in the day. Before I make it there, a Cuban man
walking with his wife asks me qué hora
es.
—No sé.
—No, ¿qué hora es? What time?
—Sí, entiendo, pero no sé. No tengo reloj.
—No sé.
—No, ¿qué hora es? What time?
—Sí, entiendo, pero no sé. No tengo reloj.
Ah, ¡hablas español! Etc.,
etc., and right away he’s telling me where I can go hear some salsa, where the Cubanos hang out, not the tourists, and ven, tengamos una copa, and I know I’m
about to be had, but what the hell, I have nothing better to do. We walk into a
watering hole around the corner, and mi nuevo
amigo—se llama Ricardo, y su esposa, Gina—is pointing to photos on the wall
of Benny More, and makes a great show of being impressed that I’ve heard of
him. We sit and chat for a while, and I don’t mind the chance to practice my
Spanish, and it’s late, I’m underslept, and now have some ron in me, and boy, I’m letting it fly, and very happily accepting
Ricardo’s compliments on my Spanish, on my staying in a casa particular instead of the Nacional, for hanging out with the
first real Cubans that I meet on the street on my first day on la isla—porque en general, las turistas, no
conocen la realidad Cubana—etc. We talk about Cuban culture, American
culture—I know I’m ultimately being swindled, but at the same time, I feel I’m getting
something real out of this (and, indeed, have been warned that Cuba will reveal
herself to be a land of contradictions and unanswered questions—vale). Ricardo is proud that, Mira, en todos partes del mundo, hay
personas buenas y malas, pero aquí en La Habana, no hay mucho crimen, no hay
mucha violencia… When we clink glasses on our second round, Ricardo
confirms what I’ve suspected is coming—y
gracias a tí por tu invitación. Yes, I
invited them to have a drink, and I will
pay. Whatever, lo acepto—vale, I
didn’t quite expect the bill to come to CUC$37.50 (or, this might have been in pesos,
in which case I’ve been duped spectacularly), but of course Ricardo has been
ordering from the top shelf—y la verdad
es que I would drop this much on less on any given night out in New York. I
make like I don’t quite have enough cash, but finally cave when Ricardo says,
well, they’ll accept US dollars too—¿tampoco
no tienes? pues, ¿en la casa?—and I don’t think he’d actually do it, but I
can’t have someone following me to Emilio’s house, so I peer real close again
into my wallet and, ¡O, tengo poco más!, as
long as I can just wrap this up quickly. Ricardo wins, but I hold the line when they tell me about their two young children, one still a
baby (pues, hombre, ¿por qué estás bebiendo
con un extranjero si teneis bebé en la casa?), and can I help out with five
pesos for leche. This after he’s
craftily won an expression of sympathy from me earlier in our compartiendo about how foreigners come
to Cuba to study Spanish, hang with locals like him, comparten los bebidos, se divierten como amigos, but they’ll
cold-heartedly refuse you—literally, su
ejemplo—five pesos for milk.
I
refuse. Supongo que soy uno más
extranjero duro. Pues, supongo también que hay personas buenas y malas en todos
partes del mundo.
A casa, finalmente. My
first day in Cuba ends with a feeling of satisfaction that my Spanish, si muy imperfecto, ain’t bad. I’m thinking in Spanish. I’d like to believe
there was something sincere in how impressed Ricardo played by my español, just as I genuinely enjoyed our
hang while being made a fool of.
1 Casas particulares: private homes with rooms to let that operate as pseudo-bed-and-breakfasts.
2 “For simplicity’s sake downtown Havana can be split into three main areas: Habana Vieja, Centro Habana and Vedado … Centrally located Habana Vieja is the city’s atmospheric historic masterpiece; dense Centro Habana, to the west, provides an eye-opening look at the real-life Cuba in close-up; and the more majestic spread-out Vedado is the once-notorious Mafia-run district replete with hotels, restaurants and a pulsating nightlife” (Lonely Planet: Cuba).