FlashCuba: PHOTOS ABOUT CUBA FROM HOLGUIN, AN EASTERN PROVINCE.

Pachi Naranjo, Cuban National Music Award 2011

2011-12-13T15:13:00.000-05:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

I am far from being an expertise at music though I listen to all sort of music, personal preferences I have, depending on the context. Sometimes I have no choice of course. And I hardly dance -very bad of me!- because I don not only need the help of lights.

Oh, that`s me beating around the bush. I just only wanted to share my pleasure when I heard Wilfredo “Pachy” Naranjo, the Original de Manzanillo band director, had been presented with the Cuban National Music Award 2011. This group has been long one of my favorite. A thousand congratulations to Pachy!

Carlos Acosta, Cuba's National Dance Award 2011, Performs in Holguín

2011-12-12T12:36:00.000-05:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

The Eddy Suñol theater sold out completely: Carlos Acosta's first performance in Holguín. The audience reluctant in the beginning, very excited later clapping hands madly. Acosta won them over easily with his art. The chello player Amparo del Riego and contemporary dancer Laura Ríos kept him company.

He was awarded with the Hijo Ilustre and the Angelote distinctions to aknowledge his work as an outstandig rep of the Cuban culture.

A book by him will come out soon in England: Pata de puerco. He hopes he can publish it in Cuba. He also announced the shooting of a movie about his life.

And said, lastly, he wants to widen his repertoire, not necessarily with classic pieces.

Cuba Pictured by Soul Dance

2011-11-10T14:56:00.001-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Art feeds generally on life experiences and represents them esthetically always hoping, more than drawing attention, to make people reflect and to pave the way for changes or at least to bring them up.

There are thousand of motives which are brought up by the research of the artists engaged with the social environment. The pieces by Danza del Alma (Soul Dance) a contemporary dance company from Villa Clara, stands out for the well-chosen topics and the staging of choreographies stemming from every-day life conflicts of modern man.

Pelotón (platoon) and Juegos de Guerra (War Games), two of the three pieces staged at the Eddy Suñol theater in Holguín City, deal with Cuban people's every-day life existential depictions and worries of a society approached precisely from the view point of a contemporary Cuban ballet company combining, this time, war and cultural themes.

Soul Dance showed an artistic solid discourse thanks to its interpreters, all men, who transferred histrionically and with symbolism the inspiration theme provoking laughs although an interior reflexive look on reality prevailed.

The company, founded in 1995 and headed by choreographer Ernesto Alejo Sosa touring the Island now, made its last presentation in Holguín last night. The Suñol theater, after its re-inauguration, is in need of these artistic casts to recover the public that it always had.

Cuban Nacional Ballet Performs in Holguín

2011-10-24T12:38:00.000-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

The Cuban National Ballet (BNC) presented this Sunday in the sold-out Eddy Suñol theater a program to be repeated today at 9:00 p.m.

Five pieces were interpreted by young members of the BNC who pleased the audience with the choreographies Muñecos by Alberto Méndez, Majísimo by Jorge García, Dionaea by Gustavo Herrera and Dialogo a 4 by Alicia Alonso.

The BNC’s last performance in Holguín took place in the 80s. This time the program is dedicated to the Ibero-American House and to the IV Encounter of International Solidarity Art Brigades taking place now.

Holguín Turned into Eastern Rock Capital with Metal HG

2011-09-29T10:02:00.003-04:00

Rock bands arrived in Holguín from Ciego de Ávila, Havana City, Cienfuegos to join to local ones in the 13th Metal HG Rock Festival sponsored by the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS) and the Cuban Rock Agency.

Debates and workshops on the influence of rock music within the new generations of artists, as well the link between rock and literature and the way it is focus in mass media, took place.

Asgard, from Cienfuegos made its debut in Holguín; Agonizer, made the dancing temperature go up over the main stage at the Young Artists’ House, headquarters to the event and to the AHS, just like Condenados, Kallejeros, Treament Choice, Suffering Tool and other bands to add up 17 in total.

The Fest has its continuity in The May Pilgrimage with the Rock-merías, sort of rock-(pilgr)image, a collateral event for the sake of rock artists and followers of that music.

Children Carnival Holguín 2011 Kicks Off

2011-08-14T13:00:00.000-04:00

Sight of the Los Libertadores avenue from up a carnival carriage.

Carriages, dancing carnival groups and walking choreography groups as well as clowns navigate all the way through the Libertadores Avenue from Holguín city, amid a sea of laughs, bright eyes, big and small hands –up and down, interwoven– and infantile fearful faces to the sight of macabre and daredevils disguises.

So starts the Holguín 2011 Carnival always preceded by the little carnival, the younger version of the Popular Parties celebrated from one extreme to the other one of the Cuban Island.

After the parade there will be a concert by the infantile salsa group The Sagüeritos and other artistic presentations in the area of the parking-lot of the Calixto García baseball park while refreshments and sweets are being sold.

About happiness, fears, dancing and family walkings.

Eddy Suñol Theater Already Open

2011-07-22T11:21:00.001-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

The Holguín Eddy Suñol theater was re-inaugurated, after ten years closed, with a Big Cultural Gala that included pianist Frank Fernández, the Rodrigo Prats Lyrical Company, the Holguín Symphony Orquestra, and two members of the Cuban National Ballet. More info

Crowned Britney Miss Glamor Holguín 2011

2011-07-12T15:35:00.003-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Finalist participants.

Britney, from Holguín, was crowned Miss Glamour Queen Holguín 2011 in the 2^nd edition of this competitive event of transformism developed successfully last July 8 and 9 in the Holguín’s Salón Benny Moré.

The contest, under the auspices of the CENESEX and ARTEX Holguín, was attended by participants from Villa Clara, Santi Spíritus, Guantánamo, Las Tunas and Holguín.

Miss Glamour is a gay beauty contest whose first edition was held in 2003 at the provincial headquarters of the National Center of Sexual Education (CENESEX) when local rep Grettel la Mare won the crown.

There was a classificatory and a finalist night seasoned each by musical and performing varieties in addition to the competitive activities.

Brenda from Villa Clara and Moraima Picasso from Guantánamo, were declared First and Second Lady, respectively.

Natural Love

2011-07-06T11:10:00.000-04:00

!What a tenderness! ¿Can it be denied? The romantic similarity is not casual.

Taken in my birthplace.

Car Purchase-sale at the Corner in Cuba

2011-07-01T15:23:00.000-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Oldtimer on sale in Bayamo city.

The 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) would have been much more successful if, in its closing day, it had been announced immediately the car purchase-sale policy as well as the housing one, at least.

I do not take away at all any political importance to the event, neither tone down the transcendental aspects discussed. I only remark the fact it has to do with two very hoped-for measures. They should have been checked earlier so that many illegalities would have been avoided.

Their legal implementation urges despite the juridical difficulties it may run into. They should help dynamite other advertised changes, though caution proves to be prudent. Common sense will go its way putting it right with time, as it has to be done with some other measures already implemented like the Supply and Demand Law applied to means of transportation where the “who he offers rules”-policy reigns.

Oldtimers in Santiago de Cuba city.

Oldtimers in Holguín city.

Gibara City, a Fortunate Nature

2011-06-23T13:00:00.001-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Gibara city is often related to being an attractive and beautiful port city. That is true. But its natural charms are rarely referred to. The treasured biodiversity calls the eye (lens) of photographers, amateur and professionals, to whom it is not difficult to make time stop in an instant of the flora and fauna because of the inherent photogenic, rural and city milieu.

The Cupeycillo (a rural place) ecosystem hosts endemic bird species and houses too corridors to migrant birds that frequently make a staying in given seasons.

Carpintero jabao o Meladerpes supecidiario.

Cartacuba o Todus multicolor.

Siju platanero.


Gibara Bay with a view of Gibara's Saddle hill.

Gibara Bay’s grace bewitches: I do not believe there is a person who, lens in between, opposes resistance to press the shutter; though there are many regretting not carrying a camera with to take the city in a shot ¿Any doubts?

Gibara Bay with a view of Gibara Saddle hill.

Gibara Bay at dawn.

Gibara Bay.

Congratulations Papá!

2011-06-20T10:51:00.001-04:00

Wrong who he thinks father is anyone. Nothing so faraway from truth. Biology is one thing; Feeling, another.

Father and daughter in Calixto García park. Holguín City.

Fernandito and his father at Calixto García primary school.

Father and daughter during a Sunday walk in Holguín.

Ration Book Contradicts Distribution Principles in Socialism.

2011-05-23T14:37:00.002-04:00

Photos by Amauris Betancourt.

Raul Castro Ruz, President of the Council of State and the Council of Minister of the Cuban Republic and First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) stated, in the Central Report to the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party:

“Undoubtedly, the ration book and its removal spurred most of the contributions of the participants in the debates, and it is only natural. Two generations of Cubans have spent their lives under this rationing system that, despite its harmful egalitarian quality, has for four decades ensured every citizen access to basic food at highly subsidized derisory prices.”

“This distribution mechanism introduced in times of shortages during the 1960s, in the interest of providing equal protection to our people from those involved in speculation and hoarding with a lucrative spirit, has become in the course of the years an intolerable burden to the economy and discouraged work, in addition to eliciting various types of transgressions.”

The leaflet including the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution passed last April 18th, states in the chapter on Social Policy:

174. The implementation of a slowly and gradual elimination of the Ration Card as a way of equal and controlled distribution at highly subsidized prices.”

Ration book store in the municipality of Rafael Freyre.

Ration book store in the municipality of Holguín.

2011 May Pilgrimage in Holguín

2011-05-19T12:24:00.001-04:00

By Heidi Calderon. (Taken form her blog)

The 18th Holguín's May Pilgrimage came to an end as a token of triumphant hard work. The miracle could be achieved thanks to that hard work to improve the festival where all kinds of art come together.

The call has always been made. The eastern lying city of Holguín holds yearly, from May 2 to 8, a May Pilgrimage challenging economic budgets. Lead vehemently by Alexis Triana, president of the organizing committee, it has been made possible people speak not only of pilgrins but also of world artistic youths.

Capacity to bring back old traditions and forge new rites grants part of the success. The rest goes, maybe, on the will to turn action into a flag as the best speech.

The May Pilgrimage goes on gathering, under the same concept, every spring, the will to dream ann the invitation for men to come down their ivory towers.

Photografies.

MORE PICTURES.

Cosme Proenza Opens Mega-Exhibition in Holguín

2011-04-29T09:24:00.000-04:00

Cosme Proenza, Holguin's foremost painter and one of the most renowned artists in Cuba, opened a mega-exhibition on Wednesday in the city of Holguin, at times of his 40 year non-stop carreer.

Under the title "Parallels: history and tradition of Western art," the exhibition includes more than one hundred pieces that review the various creative periods of the artist. The exhibition curator was Angel San Juan.

Parallels: history and tradition of Western art is a didactic exhibition that presents the artist’s vision of Western culture throughout five centuries of inherited painting in our continent.

Cosme Proenza was born in the Cuban province of Holguin in 1948. He graduated as Master on Fine Arts at the Fine Arts Institute of Kiev, Ukraine, and has been granted national and international acknowledgement.

His works are being exhibited in major galleries and private collections in Australia, Italy, Germany, Italy, Costa Rica, Greece, Mexico, Russia, France and Venezuela. Some of the works at: http://www.radioangulo.cu/noticias/cultura/14632-sera-inaugurada-esta-noche-en-holguin-gran-exposicion-de-cosme-proenza.html

The Sugar Cane, the Factory and the Cuban

2011-04-20T10:57:00.000-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Cristino town is named after the sugar factory. Its people are very sociable.

The current Cuban sugar harvest benefits from favorable results, actually needed for the new domestic economic situation. Productive results are achieved before time and unexpectedly because costs are lower than planned.

Sugar factories go on producing, though plans have bee accomplished, because there are still available sugar cane fields.

The sugar cane, from its very harvesting to its industrial process, tinges Cuban idiosincracy. It is part of our culture.

It gets me happy the chance to live it, lens in between, of course; and even more, to share it.

Cuban KTP harvester.

Hand workers pick up manually leftovers.

Young student drives a KTP for pleasure and duty.

Lunch time.

Cristino Naranjo sugar factory.

Vasculador, from where sugar cane goes into the factory.

Greasing to improve friction.

Tandem, where the milling takes place.

Sugar factory furnace worker.

Centrifugues.

Sugar honey treatments.

Produced sugar on the way to storage.

Storing

Workers.

Raul Camayd Payed Homage to During Concert Festival

2011-04-01T15:20:00.000-04:00

The Lirical singer Raúl Camayd was payed homage to in Holguín with the gala "The Lirical Dream", held at the history museum "La Periquera" during the third night of this Concert Music Edition.

Concepción Casals, María Dolores Rodríguez, María Luisa Clark and tenor Julio Proenza sang while the operetta “La viuda alegre”, and zarzuela “Cecilia Valdés”, by Gonzalo Roig were interpreted by Alfredo Más y Liudmila Pérez.

Concert Music Festival Started

2011-03-29T14:30:00.000-04:00

The symphony orchestras of Oriente and Holguín got together at the opening concert of the 23rd edition of the Concert Music Festival underway in Holguin at the La Marqueta square. The two noted institutions played for an audience eager to enjoy the program which was previously presented at the Dolores Hall in Santiago de Cuba.

The overture of “Romeo and Juliet” by Piort Tchaikovsky conducted by maestro Orestes Saavedra (Holguín), and Symphony 5, Opus 47 by Shostakovich, by Cosette Justo Vega, born in San German, Holguin and leader of the Orchestra Symphonic of Oriente delighted the audience despite unusual delay because of the audio and quality of its sound.
For pictures, please, visit: http://mauroflash.blogspot.com/2011/03/inauguracion-de-la-jornada-nacional-de.html

Lidis Lamorú: Prophet in her Land

2011-03-11T08:41:00.000-05:00

"Children are my inspiration source", said Lidis Lamorú to one of my colleagues after the concert attended by thousands that made the stage look like a ship but surrounded by children instead of water inn its 360º.

The concert, included in her national tour throughout Cuba “For a Smile” devouted to the 5th elementary and junior high school students Congress, was held in the Calixto García park last Sunday, March 6.

Lidis Lamorú was rewarded and payed homage to with the big crowd from the land where she was born.

Pictures here

A Graphic Panorama from the Internacional Book Fair in Holguín

2011-03-07T09:26:00.000-05:00

The International Book Fair in Holguín was held between March 2 and 6 in the province of Holguín. Inauguration words were voiced by Alexis Triana, head of the Culture Ministerium here. Jaime Zarusky, National Literary Award, was paid a homage to as well As to Olga Portuondo, oustanding historian.

Also the UNEAC building hosted a book-store and a launching place for the presentation of books where Emerio Medina, last Casa de las Américas short-story winner, broke the ice.

For pictures visit this link: http://mauroflash.blogspot.com/2011/03/de-la-feria-internacional-del-libro-en.html

The Chan Chan Son Route Gets Deeply Rooted in Holguin

2010-11-29T15:24:00.005-05:00

By Maria Caridad Martinez Peregrin and Sailis Quesada Requejo (journalism students)

“De Alto Cedro voy para Marcané , llego a Cueto voy para Mayari!” reads the most popular song by Cuban singer Compay Segundo - which inspires the first edition of "The Chan Chan Son Route," an event that made a successful come-back in early November 2010. The La Periquera Museum - National Monument – marked the start of the caravan headed by members of the Latin American Association of Motorcyclists. The caravan made a halt in Barajagua, birthplace to the famous Cuban caricaturist Tomy (Tomas Rodriguez Zayas), who passed away recently and whose work made people in and abroad laugh and think. Right next to his tomb, caravan members and Tomy’s relatives paid homage to this noted artist with wreaths and the performance of troubadour Fernando Cabrejas.Alto Cedro, the meeting place of last century’s most noted Cuban eastern troubadours, was the second stop because it has become since 2009 the starting point to the Chan Chan Route. Carvanists visited the place with a wall commemorative inscription created by the visual artist Pepe Vidal marking it. Right there the traditional “Viviendo Futuro” sextet from Alto Cedro made a performance for town dwellers and visitors. Alexis Triana, director of the Provincial Culture Board, donated books and photographs on the local cultural history to be exhibited at the community museum in construction. The Birán History Complex, National Monument and birthplace to Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro Ruz, also welcomed the Caravan, made up also of foreign guests, artists, cultural promoters and communicators from Holguín province.

The folklore dance company “Renovación Haitiana” performed for the new comers while historian Antonio Lopez briefed them on the place and its history.
"The town of Marcane is also part of the Chan Chan route…" reads a commemorative inscription, placed during this tour on the wall of the “old train station around which the town of Marcané arose”, Alexis Triana said. At the place’s main square the casino dancing group “Holguin Forever” and the local one “Nueva Creación Campesina” danced shared the stage to bear out culture as a unifying force. "… llego a Cueto…” and in the homonymous jurisdiction’s head town rises the sculpture of Repilado (the beloved Compay Segundo), where the Chan Chan Caravan was welcomed by the Municipal Concert Band and the Mezcla children dance group. Later an exhibition with some Tomy’s original caricatures was opened.

Guaro town became next stop. The tour was welcome with Jamaican dances, as a present sign left behind by immigrants’ cultural legacy. And finally Mayarí, where Mayacuba musical group gave a warm welcome, followed by a meeting at the municipal culture house and a performance at the Martin Melendez square by the “Los Tainos de Mayari” son orchestra that recently arrived from a tour in France.
The Son Music Route or Chan Chan Route, came to an end in its second edition with music and different other artistic manifestations. And now, far from resting until next time, its promoters are making plans to turn the Route into a tourism route in order to universalized Holguín’s rich cultural traditions.

Production Team Prepares the Technical Montage for Pablo's Concert Tonight

2010-11-12T09:26:00.002-05:00

Production technitian began last night preparing the montage required for Pablo Milanés' concert in Holguín's Revolution Square while sound technitians will work today to have everything ready this evening before the concert starts off at 9:00 p.m.

Pablo Milanés Sings in Holguín Tomorrow

2010-11-11T17:30:00.002-05:00

Cuban singer Pablo Milanés is already in Holguín for the concert tomorrow in the Mayor General Calixto García Revolution Square at 9:00 p.m. after 22 years without singing in this northeastern city.

Mlanés accepted an interview with colleagues that will be soon at you disposal in the different websites form our province.

Gala Hold Last Night at La Periquera History Museum on the National Culture Day

2010-10-21T11:09:00.000-04:00

For more information you can read at:

http://www.radioangulo.cu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11391:talento-y-buen-gusto-en-gala-de-la-cubanidad-celebrada-en-holguin-&catid=16:cultura&Itemid=72

Metal HG Rock Fest in Holguín

2010-09-25T11:11:00.004-04:00

Translated by Juan Carlos Dominguez.

Zeus Band, from Havanna.

The loud and high-pitched sounds of Cuban rock overwhelms the city of Holguín bewitching the many fans there are here. The concerts by bands Claim and Zeus, from Holguín and Havana respectively, served to kick off the eleventh Metal HG National Rock Festival in the downtown Calixto Garcia park.

Claim band, from Holguín.Zeus band, from Havanna.

Prior to the Festival’s official opening, a photo exhibition was inaugurated at the Electa Arenal room of the Art Center.

Leading singer from Zeus Band.

Debates and lectures on rock by participants and rock-goers are included in the Festival program besides the scheduled concerts. The Rock festival is sponsored by the local branch of the Hermanos Saíz Association and the Provincial Culture Board.

Zeus band.

Many concerts will be held at the Armando Mestre recreation center till its closing day on September 26. The Metal HG Festival is a space to disclose the work of bands of this musical genre so attractive to youths all across Cuba.

Carnaval Winds in Holguín City

2010-08-04T09:36:00.004-04:00

The city of Holguín, East of Cuba, will soon play host to its 2010 Carnaval. Recently a cultural spectacle was held to pick out its leading song.

"Conga para Margarita" written by Pedro Alberto Walter, member of Tolerancia rap group, got the prize.

Fantasía parade group.Codanza.

Pancho donkey, famous for its beer drinking habit, attended the spectacle as special guest.

Hundreds og peolple attended the gala.

8vo Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre Humberto Solás: el oceo.

2010-04-27T14:03:00.008-04:00

When a movie is not made; then it is made music, o leisure time; it is looked; otherwise memory pictures are taken.

8vo Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre Humberto Solás: artes invitadas.

2010-04-27T13:57:00.004-04:00

The Non-Budget International Gibara Movie Festival attracted many different arts.

Visual arts.

Cuban and international music.

Handicraft.

8vo Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre Humberto Solás: gastronomía.

2010-04-27T13:52:00.005-04:00

Gastronomy was well served. Roast porks were never out of sight.

8th Low Budget Film Festival Humberto Solás: Main Characters

2010-04-27T12:55:00.005-04:00

Photos: Amauris Betancourt.

Sergio Benvenuto Solás, Low-Budget Film Festival director.

Spanish Esmeralda Grao, composer, singer and actress.

Osvaldo Montes, sound track composer.

Juan José Ortiz, UNICEF rep in Cuba.

Nelson Rodriguez, film editor and National Cinema Award.

Reynaldo Gonzalez, script jury member Cuban National Literature Award.

Low-Budget Film Festival Blessed with Concert by Kelvis Ochoa

2010-04-20T13:16:00.004-04:00

Text and photos: Amauris Betancourt.
Translation: Juan Carlos Dominguez Taño.

The popular Cuban musician Kelvis Ochoa played at the opening concert of the 8th Humberto Solas International Low-Budget Film Festival, held at the Da Silva Plaza in the city of Gibara. Prior to the concert, the traditional mass parade of participants and the people in Gibara took place in the also nicknamed “White Village of the Crabs.”

The Festival has also scheduled theoretical forums, professional meetings, plastic arts exhibitions, and the presentation of movie-works contending for the prizes as well as many other attractions such as the gathering with Nelson Rodriguez, whom the current Festival edition is devoted to. Elia Solas, Sergio Benvenuto Solas and journalist Joel del Rio are invited to the gathering.

The Da Silva Plaza will also welcome - starting this Tuesday night – the presentation of the works brought by the International Festival of the Childhood and the Youth of Madrid, Spain, due to the fact this year’s event in Gibara is dedicated to the youngest generations.

And right in that same square, singer M Alfonso will perform, as a way tom make music travel to several other places of the coastal city that bewitched Humberto Solas where he shot some of his best films.

The International Low-Budget Film Festival Opens Today in Gibara

2010-04-19T16:23:00.004-04:00

Text and photos: Amauris Betancourt. Translation: Juan Carlos Dominguez.

A press conference at the House of Culture in the Cuban eastern city of Gibara marked the opening to the 8th edition of the Humberto Solas International Gibara Low-Budget Film Festival. But the traditional official opening will start at 19:00 (Havana time) with a parade from the Culture Square to the Calixto Garcia park, right across from the Jiba movie-theater.This highly competitive event at the also nicknamed ‘White Village of the Crabs’ is the headquarters to the Movie Festival that spreads to all Eastern Cuban provinces.

This time some 160 works coming from the United States, Chile, Spain, China and other nations, will be competing in different categories such as short movies, feature films, experimental works, rough cut project and scripts, documentaries, animation and videoart.Theoretical sessions, exhibitions and concerts are included too as part of this edition devoted to children and adolescents.

A panel on drama and alternative movie, and the concerts by Kelvis Ochoa, David Blanco, Rochy and Diego Gutierrez stand out among the most expected events.

Reynaldo Gonzalez, National Prize of Literature, and Tomas Piard are among the personalities that make up the jury, along with other international figures who would make a decision on the best works presented in the competition.

The closing ceremony will close the current edition a day before the festival comes to an end next April 24 with the prize awarding gala.

Gibara's dwellers.

Sierra del Cristal, 80 years Protecting Nature

2010-04-13T10:15:00.002-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Sierra Cristal, Northeast in Holguín province, has turned officially 80 years old last Monday April 12 as a Natural Park, since 1930. The Park shelters the flora and fauna species that favor the human being's existence.

The Natural Park, known at present as Pico Cristal Natural Park after the name of its highest elevation (1 231 meters), hosts natural treasures in biodiversity and is a resourceful means to protect the environment.

Natural parks help regulate the climate and work as biological controllers and as shelters to animal species. Pico Cristal spreads over four municipalities ( Mayarí, Sagua of Tánamo, Frank País and Segundo Frente ) and two provinces ( Holguín and Santiago de Cuba ). Pico Cristal Natural Park makes one of the 253 Protected Areas all over the country. The Cuban scientific community and people interested in environment topics payed a visit to the Park yesterday to honor the Park´s birthday.

The Hill of the Cross and the City of Holguín

2010-04-13T09:04:00.002-04:00

By Maylin Betancourt Verdecia.

Photos: Amauris Betancourt.

Translation by Juan Carlos Dominguez.

There are stories that seem to be too old to always be remembered, but the need to remind them becomes a must from time to time. Then a tiny goblin called memory comes back from its trip to the past. It comes closer, filled with traditions, with a scent to roots and preceded by a mystic whisper warning, each step it makes, that "the nation that forgets its history runs the risk of getting lost."

The climbing of 458 steps serves to notice why Holguin people praise that much the Hill of the Cross, just as a symbol. Everything looks better from up there. Imagination meets no border and even some people assure sadness goes away while looking all around.

The truth is that a few people know the mount was baptized as the Hill of the Cross back on May 3rd, 1790, because that day Fray Francisco Antonio de Alegria climbed the Bayado Hill, as it was then called, to place a wooden cross on the top. Since then, the cross has remained there and has become a jealous guardian safeguarding the city of Holguin.

And to honor that event, Holguin holds every year the popular May Pilgimage Festival, which begins precisely with a pilgrimage by Holguin dwellers climbing up the hill to make offerings, to beg for prosperity in the times to come, or to have fun.

Anyway, anyone coming to Holguín, nicknamed also the Cuban City of the Parks, for the first time, cannot miss the sweet challenge of climbing it.

Photos

Cuban Salsa Orchestra NG la Banda Gives a Concert in Holguín

2010-04-06T15:00:00.002-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

The Cuban popular orchestra NG la Banda closed, last Sunday in the Calixto García park, the celebrations for the 465th anniversary of the San Isidoro de Holguín settlement that gave birth to this present-day city.

The Tosco, NG la Banda director nicknamed so popularly, congratulated the Holguin people as he made them dance with his music acknowledged nationally and internationally for 22 years now since it was founded and whose birthday agreed with the very day of the concert in Holguín that lasted until this Monday’s early morning.

PHOTOREPORTAGES

2010-04-02T16:18:00.006-04:00

Holguín: The City of the Parks, the City we Love
By Maylín Betancourt Verdecia.
Photos: Amauris Betancourt.

Each city has its history; pages marked by that unerasable footprint that smell of past, present and future. My Holguín's parks are as old as the city itself and have borne witness to the going back and forth of all the Holguín generations.

When thinking of them I can not help bringing to mind the joy, sadness, friendship, dreams and loves its benches have warmed. The first parks –the San Isidoro Square or now Julio Grave de Peralta Park and the Parade Ground nowadays Calixto García Park, were born in 1720 to become the heart of the city.

Today we have many more and, as in the beginning, they still are the most important urban places. They have it right to say that the one visiting Holguín for the first time gets so delighted with the parks and its rhythmically street disposition and coherent organization that they always want to come back for a visit.

Eliana Ajo, a Lifetime Devoted to Theater

2010-03-31T09:58:00.001-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Eliana Ajo, Art Director of the Teatro Comandante “Eddy Suñol”, has devoted 45 years to the Cuban scene. Her lifetime work as an actress, noteworthy for the Holguín culture, is acknowledged due to her highly credits related to the theater World.Eleana Ajo was granted last Saturday evening The “Alberto Dávalos” Award that stands for the highest distinction given in Holguín to actors or actresses to acknowledge a professional life devoted to theatre. Eleana Ajo was given the Award amid the applause and joy of colleagues and students.

That Hidden Korda's Photograph

2010-03-09T12:40:00.003-05:00

By Leandro Estupiñan.

The grandmother’s mother, a fat and white-haired madam, like the Russian refrigerator she had first than any in the family, was a sensitive woman. Although she feigned a strong character, tinged with certain humor and good imagination, she looked, according to my child vision, a sentimental woman, face-steeled because of the time she lived in a place once called Tacámara, far away from the present-day Holguín.

I knew about her sensitive spirit by chance one day when I stepped into her room and I discovered the photo in a small wooden frame, shielded by a nylon bag if I remember well. The girl in the portrait held in her arms a wooden piece resembling a toy. She had big eyes and the face, innocent, discovered her possible distrust towards the one taking the snapshot in front of her.

As the girl in the photo would be the age that I was in those days I felt attracted by her image. I found her funny, simple, pretty as girls are for all children. I possibly even felt a tickling sensation of infantile love and swore sometime than she, the girl in the photo, only watched by those allowed in the room, was my girlfriend. The photo of the girl holding the wooden piece turned an obsession.

After I grew up, enough to be almost sure that the girl in the photo was not my own great-grandmother, that is, my grandmother's mother keeping her own image amid two or three Saint's images and the images of some small angels inside a plate to crown a shrine. I thought that having a picture taken was that easy for somebody who had spent her life in the countryside beginning the XX century, as it was for me in the eighties’.

I was then seven or eight years old. I lived unaware of those days when the Soviet Union seemed our best friend; and although it was a distant country, it was sort of dream that made some achievements come true such as the ones belonging to my neighbor Guanchi who, after going away to study I do not know to what socialist Germany, came back with a Suzuki motorcycle with no roads here to drive on. Guanchi was made into our hero (dearer than Flipper, or the London, the wanderer dog) and we looked up to him as an ET could be looked at if it landed on your back yard.

My grandmother's mother had then a son living in the United States and family members talked about him with certain mystery for a simple reason that I came to figure out when she turned an old-dying-of-cancer woman that we always saw on her old spring bed. She died a few hours after her son arrived from New York, the city where she had herself stayed next to her husband, my grandmother's father, my great-grandfather, and came back with candied- peanut bars and teddy-bears for boys.

I ignore what happened with the portrait after my grandmother's mother death. What I definitely know is the great intensity of my surprise the day I ran into that image that I believed so familiar. I was searching in some old newspapers and suddenly, the girl, with all the brusqueness I had acquired in my adulthood, emerged from the paper pages. I was an adult, a well-made man, as the phrase goes, while she continued to be a girl. She had remained unchanged to time thanks to Korda's lens, the true author of this portrait.

That day, when I discovered who the girl in the portrait really was, I felt happy: we were not family-related, but we grew up together. She had become a real and beloved person in my life and I, perhaps, had gotten stuck in the day when I met her, small, distrusted like she herself.

I reminded my mother’s grandmother. I saw her again in bed, at nights, with the eyes fixed on the portrait in the piece of newspaper on the wall. And I saw in her eyes the pain of a cruel past, and I saw death, and I saw non grown-up children. I saw the road's mud, and I saw horse footprints on the earth, and I saw frustration. That was all I saw in the photograph. Nothing more than that. Nothing else.

Smirnov Portraits Northern Russia

2010-03-06T13:07:00.002-05:00

Translated by Juan Carlos Dominguez.

The Russian landscapes, its natural and exotic beauty, make up many generations of Cubans’ visual assets in a shared history with that country member of the former Soviet Union. The famous Sputnik magazine helped foster such imaginary background in those that neither studied nor worked there.

Maybe the Russian photographer Gennady Smirnov ignores this. However, he goes beyond achieving it with solid technical and aesthetic abilities in his exhibition "Northern Russia". He fills the gap linked to nostalgia. More than that, he provides us with a one of kind, original, photographic artistic project for Holguin.

Smirnov turns to landscape photography to disclose images of a great historical value besides the architectural and natural beauty of this Russian area with distinctive features – very cold most of the year. The Northern Russia’s spiritual wealth, Smirnov in between, is very well depicted in the vernacular religious constructions photographed.

The catalogue of the exhibition makes reference to that architectural mythical hedonism that sticks out through the visual language where Gennady Smirnov photographs the harmony and magnificence of monasteries around which communities rise.

Smirnov, lens meddling, manages to assimilate the traditional northern attributes related with the secularization of spiritual asceticism. The photographer accomplish it by leaving out, almost in all pictures, the human factor; but when people’s presence is unavoidable, he makes use of general or joint planes where human beings play no leading role.

The Russian artist goes for horizontal formats, expected in landscape photography, to highlight spirituality above earthly thing. It paves the way for contemplative reading in the images showing quietness and peace.

Smirnov photographs always with standard angles to keep real proportions of the environment where straight lines towered over perpendicular ones that would add an unfortunate dynamics.

Smirnov avoids wide angles that would alter the perspective or the narrow ones what would compress the image planes. He stresses so a representation of the scene just the way it is to get across a more authentic realism to his photos, to bring down real beauty as close as possible to our visual experiences.

One can also see the artist's commitment with what he wants to achieve by coming back to the same places to photograph them in the different seasons of the year where light yields in to his interests as it can be seen in the series ‘Solovki’s Sunsets” and the “Sacred Lake.”

He composes other pictures backed on natural elements as frames to give depth of field where snow makes the image looked planed.

Smirnov takes also advantage of different symbols to reveal the essence of the Russian North. He sets his lens on worn-out walls alluding old times; on the sky, spirituality here, with more volume in the frame; on the purifying whiteness of the snow; on the crosses, on the book as a vehicle of transmission of ancestral traditions; on costumes for pilgrimages what seems to bring together the citizens from this beautiful Russian North. If winter locks them in their homes, summer fosters community life; however, pilgrimages (beliefs) get them united in one or the other season.

Despite everything some incoherence and gaps call our eye. I could bear out later, and as a way to apologize Smirnov, through an informative search, that the exhibition is originally made up of 50 images instead of the 22 that are exhibited in the Holguín Art Center’s Electa Arenal room.

It should also not be overlooked they are landscape photographies whose main function is to provide visual pleasure and not necessarily the construction of a certain message although Gennady Smirnov achieves both things through a very well in-advance conceived photographic technical-aesthetic language.

The exhibit means a lot on the way to promote the presence of other Russian artistic projects in the city of Holguin and to make an approach to a millennial culture that will nourish the creative wealth of local artists.

The North of Russia” Exhibited in Holguín

2010-02-22T16:09:00.007-05:00

By Leandro Estupiñán

In such cold days, the North of Russia should be even colder. Now, this area is at a hand’s reach thanks to the photographic exhibition The North of Russia, opened last Saturday at the Electa Arenal Salon of the Holguín Art Center.

Russian photographer Guennadiy Smirnov shows 20 images that have been already exposed in Havana, Ciego de Ávila y Santiago de Cuba according to Irina Samsonova, a coordinator here for the Community of Russians in Holguín. This exposition intends to arouse the interest for that culture in Cuba.

This proposal comes some days before the holding of the International Book Fair in Holguín devoted to Russia. The exhibit will open till next march 2nd.

Nostalgia Biographer

2010-02-17T08:39:00.010-05:00

By Jorge Luis Sánchez Grass.

Words written for the "Nostalgia Memories" Exhibit catalogue.

Photojournalist Amauris Betancourt has become in a natural way, thanks to deliberate and unconditioned reasons, the Nostalgia biographer (Arañando la Nostalgia Music Festival). His snapshots have accompanied each Festival celebration.

The artist's accusing eye has undressed our purposes. He has been more than once a hidden eyewitness to many concerts and February alibis to enjoy ourselves. The photoreporter has turned out to be a main character at different planes. Sometimes very close to first planes; sometimes just taking part, but always an observer or a witness, with low or high profile, accepting in each moment responsibility and risk. That gives this exhibit a testimonial and ethical value sorting out his pieces as tangible documents of an epoch reaching now five years.

Diversity is concise and exhaustive, and embraces a wide scope. The images have come out of different technical supports, and so has quality. However, the artist's quality breathes above all apparatus. Actually, nothing seems more lucid that accepting the sincere and heterogeneous character that settles down the interrogation. Because each photo accounts for it: an interrogation turned into an answer where the author’s iconographic eloquence stands out.

Let us thank the truth’s unbreaking possibility to emerge from a deep genuine call. Amauris Betancourt adds up to it: a reality's vital segment, defining and strengthening the most beautiful and humble language, the enjoyable act to change it on the way to perfection.

Buried Cuban Poet Angel Augier

2010-01-22T09:03:00.005-05:00

Ángel Augier, an Holguín poet born in Freyre municipality, 1991 National Literature Award and founder of the National Association of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC), was buried yesterday in Havana's Colón cemetery.

A breathing problem brought about his death. Augier was the UNEAC vice-president for several years, founded the Cuban Journalist Association (UPEC) and was member of the Cuban Spanish Languague Academy. His last visit to Holguín was during the International Book Fair in 2006, when I made this portrait.

Holguín Lyrical Theater Tours Jerry German’s Broadway Musical Show

2010-01-16T19:45:00.003-05:00

La Cage aux Folles, staged for the first time in Cuba.

Jerry Herman’s Show, the Rodrigo Prats Lyrical Company’s new production, was staged last night in the Ismaelillo movie-theater. The work, included in the Holguin’s Week of Culture’s program, tours three of the most important pieces by the American Broadway musical show composer Jerry German; “Hello, Dolly”, “Mame” and “La Cage aux Folles”, this last played as a national premier in Holguín, while “Mame” was premiered in 1970 by Nelson Dorr and “Hello, Dolly” by Octavio Cortazar in 1984, respectively.

Liudmila Pérez, María Elena Rodríguez, Kenia Allen and young debutant Alejandro Aguilera.

Art Director Raúl de la Rosa, general director Conchita Casals as well as the main actresses Maria Elena Rodriguez and Liudmila Pérez, with the special interpretation of Martin Arranz were “Bravo!-ed” and largely applauded.

Lyrical Company turns 47 Years Today

2009-11-16T14:15:00.002-05:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

The Lirical Company Rodrigo Prats has paved its own way for 47 years today. Its artistic quality has been acknowledged internationally. The company, with a very young staff, benefits from the legacy left behind by Rodrigo Prats and Raul Camayd. They proved it over the last weekend with the Zarzuela María La O staged in the Ismaelillo movie-theater.

Yinet Cruz y Yunior Galano en María la O

Conchita Casals has directed the company for 15 years.

Loyola Can Draw the Melody

2009-11-16T12:59:00.005-05:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Edelis Loyola likes better to "Dibujar la melodía (Drawing the Melody)" accompanied by a special public: children and those adults who still feel so.

Loyola arrived in Holguín city from Moa, the easternmost province municipality, bringing her guitar, compositions and singings along with. She has met with children every Sunday for a year now at the Faustino Oramas Trouba House.

Dibujar la melodía turned this Nov. 15th its first anniversary. The children, able to sing her songs by heart, sttepped in to join the anniversary with her through the different games where infantile trouba music plays the leading role.

Loyola is thanked her devotion to children.

Seventh Iberian-American Festival Holguín 2009

2009-10-31T08:25:00.005-05:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Some pictures of the development and closing day of the 7th Festival of the Iberian-Amaerican Culture in the city of Holguín, 750 Km. east from Havanna City.

Iberian-American House in San José park.

Inaguration street parade.

Santiago de Cuba's Steel Band concert.

Iberian-American Thought Congress.

Cuban trouvador Eduardo Sosa at the Holguín Touva House.

Guajira Party.

Iberian-American audiovisual playings.

Closing day at Cayo Bariay Key.

Iberian-American Festival: Soul Maps Have no Borders

2009-10-26T09:39:00.004-05:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

The 17th Iberian-American Festival started off in Holguín with an inauguration gala where the interesting melting pot binding our Iberian peoples' culture stuck out.

Music and dance made it into a gala honoring Eduardo Galeano, Mercedes Sosa, Mario Benedetti and Cubans Cintio Vitier and José Martí.

Cuban guajira dancers and singers

Trouba, Spanish and Mexican dance, and contemporary dance

Tatiana Zúniga, House of Iberia-American president welcomed participants

Flag parade

Co-danza, Seventeen Years Dancing

2009-10-06T15:02:00.006-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt / ambego@gmail.com
Co-danza, a Holguín contemporary dance company broadly recognized all over Cuba, turned 17 years old last September 25, 1992. But between Octuber 14 and 20 the company will celebrated it the way they know better: dancing. Pasajera la lluvia (1999 Villanueva Critic National Award), among other works, will be brought back to stage while Everything about me, its latest production, a coreography by Tangin Fong, dealing with the topic of sharing and communicating among people, will be premiered. Maricel Godoy has directed Codanza since its beginnings, and led it to international succes: Spain, Mexico, Venezuela and the United States.

Yényere Gumá, premiered in 2007 During the opening of the Iberian-American Party

In the Holguín 2009 Carnivals

Holguín’s Photography Exhibition: Profits and Longings

2009-09-25T14:13:00.003-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Translation: Juan Carlos Dominguez.

(August 15) "The Holguín 2009 Contest Photography Exhibition embraces marked technical and conceptual differences," asserted Rene Silveira, a Santiago de Cuba born photographer and jury president in the eighth edition, "but its importance relies on the fact of keeping many of the works presented here as a good example of what it is being done for the sake of art photography in Holguin." Yoxi Velazquez, a graduate from the “El Alba” professional academy of visual arts, was awarded the first prize for the second time in a row. Her work makes the difference in the exhibition.

Her images seduce bidirectionally. Firstly they achieve aesthetic empathy deployed in the right use of the grey scales in a beautiful and interesting way for whoever looks for beauty in a photo. Secondly, because she handles very well polysemantic resources that awake many folded interpretations. The simple thing and the complex one, creatively, come together with fondness and call the eye of those demanding either extreme.

Maikel Dominguez and Ernesto Blanco Sanciprian got the second and third prizes for the works “El hombre que intenta hacer uso de sus necesidades primarias” and “Untitled,” respectively.

On the other hand, Maikel and Ernesto based their images on technical fusions. They transfer painting expressive resources to photography and record through the use of light scenes anchored in enunciated social and conceptual aesthetics. The former interact from the theme; the latter, from a much more complex scope, adds ontological metatexts to a subtle photographic visual practice in optics and planes.

Photographer Amauris Betancourt received Mention for a group of works he presented. Alexander Sanchez with “Nina sin muneca” (Girl without dolls) which is framed within the documental picture, and Carlos Ferra with "Performance" showing a balanced composition in rhythm and contrast got mentions too.

The 8th Picture Exhibition showed some 32 works belonging to 16 artists of the lens, and in spite of the poor participation, it was rich in its diversity of themes and technique which came from the most traditional practices to the most modern ones. Just a few creators from the municipalities of Banes and Gibara participated in the annual and provincial competition, what must lead to reconsideration for future events.

The larger presence of photographers in the jury must be praised, what was longed by experts since the event’s start.

The Holguin Picture Contest is about to turn a decade, and a good way of enriching it would be reconsidering new approaches. It may embrace a central theme along with another free one, or achieve as well the presentation of several photographic exhibitions. We could dream of an international event if we take into account the number photographers that usually take part in different cultural events in Holguin province.

The Salon means lectures, talks, but peoples’ little attendance, that is why, promotion should be on the spot, not to mention more organization and material support.

The Holguin Photography Contest appointment will come back next year and we must work harder in order to make it turn into the creative event that many Cuban provinces yearn.

Photography Salon in Holguin

2009-08-08T10:16:00.003-04:00

By Amauris betancourt.

Translated by J.C. Dominguez.

The eighth Photography

Salon in Holguín province, favored by the Provincial Art Center (CPA) and the Photographers Club of Holguín (CFH), began sessions with a lecture on the history of art photography.

Photography, introduced in Holguín in 1860 by the British Mr. Charles Fox, according to Juan Albanés Martinez in his book Historia breve de la ciudad de Holguin (Brief History of Holguin City), made way in the exhibition rooms in this city since the 80’s of the 20th century.

Arnoldo Martinez, who passed away in 2001, and Roy Gonzalez, current CFH president, stood out starting that moment and became forerunners of this art that has been present in the province’s most important exhibition rooms since then on.

The peak of photography in the 20th century went on till the current 21rst century with the introduction of the digital technology which, in spite of being expensive, has brought the photography art to a larger number of people.

The CFH, with the support of the CPA, managed to keep an annual meeting held so far eight times.

This Saturday the official inauguration of the Photography Salon will take place after the jury’s deliberation headed by photographer Rene Silveira (Santiago de Cuba), including also Roy Gonzalez and Ramón Legón.

Besides the opening lecture, González talked about the history of the pre and post-1959 photography in Holguín till the present time, in which stood out the reflections on Arnoldo Martinez’s work, one of the top exponents of the lens around here.

According to sources closed to the Salon’s organizing committee, more than 15 artists of the lens will participate this year with some 20 works on different topics.

The salon, however, will have to be vindicated in order to wipe out some problems that negatively hit the celebration of the most important event on image in Holguín.

Rebel Day National Rally in Holguín

2009-08-04T11:07:00.006-04:00

Cuban President of the Councils of state and ministry, army general Raul Castro Ruz, addressed Cuban people in a rally held in Holguín this july 26th.

More than 200 thousand holguineros got together in the Calixto García Revolution Square where Raul Castro spoke of food production, water reservoirs, and saving as national security topics.

People crowded the square very early in the morning.

Raul Castro greeted American religious Lucious Walker.

High officials from the government and the party led the rally.

Jorge Cuevas Ramos, first secretary of the Communist Party in Holguín and Miguel Diaz-Canel, former one, held the certificate acknowledging Holguín as the Host province of the Revolution Day in 2009.
Raul Castro greets Moncada garrison attackers, the people and the press at the end of the speech.

Cultural Gala on Revolution Day's Eve

2009-08-04T08:35:00.009-04:00

Holguín city played host to the Revolution Day national rally cultural Gala staged the eve to honor the historic date when young people led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada garrison in Santiago de Cuba.

It was starred by local artist from the province bearing out that Holguín is strong plaza when it comes to culture.

Jose Ramón Machado Ventura, first Cuban vicepresident, and Jorge Cuevas Ramos, first secretary of Cuban Communist Party in Holguín, attended the Gala.

The Gala took place in front of the National Monument La Periquera History Museum

The Calixto García central park got crowded by Holguín people.

A segment of the zarzuela Cecilia Valdés was interpreted by the Holguín Rodrigo Prats Lyrical Company.
The Holguín Symphony Orchestra played life all the musical background.
Cuban vicepresident made compliments to the artist.

Holguín Plays Host to National Rebel Day

2009-07-22T13:04:00.002-04:00

Holguín province has played host thrice, including the currrent year, to a National Rebel Day rally.

Down some photogaleries about the province.

Photogaleries

Breaking of the news

Holguin city from the air

Mayor General Calixto García Revolution square

Gibara municipality

Banes municipality

Mayarí municipality

Moa municipality

May Pilgrimage Came to an End

2009-05-13T15:40:00.006-04:00

Text and photos: Amauris Betancourt.

(May 09) The Holguín May Pilgrimage fused day and night in its last day, extended till next day’s sunrise over the frieze of the Major General Calixto García Revolution Square in the city of Holguín, to the rhythm of Moneda Dura pop band headed by Nassiry Lugo.

The evening closing ceremony broke off with a gala held at the Ismaelillo movie-theater, and then the Holguín Axe –a symbol of city- was brought down from the top of the Hill of the Cross to the La Periquera History museum.

It was then that the presidency of the Hermanos Saiz Association (AHS) and the directive branch of the Ministry of Culture in Holguín headed the parade from the city’s old side to the modern one.

The May Pilgrimage organizing committee, Cuban and foreign delegates, and members of the Jose Marti art brigade, holding flags, guarded by two vehicles, one with a tree from Quebec, Canada, the other with a giant screen showing images of the last Pilgrimage edition, made their way across the river of people packed at the roomy XX Aniversario avenue, until finally reaching the two 18-story buildings not far from the Hotel Pernik.

The tree from Quebec was planted then and the Holguín Axe was raised up to the top of one of the two buildings.

Then from a stage built for the occasion, Alexis Triana, top Culture official in Holguín, called the people for the coming 17th edition of May Pilgrimage.

Later, there were combined and simultaneous performances for the peoples’ satisfaction. Several artists from the delegations that attended the Festival performed at the central platform, while at the Calixto Garcia Revolution Square the mythical Canadian musician Vic Vogel directed a long Canadian-Cuban concert, or quebecois-holguín concert, which was followed by the local band of Andy Clay, to finally close the day with Moneda Dura Saturday early in the morning.

This was a bright ending to seven days of intense artistic events, from different manifestations, with people coming from all over Cuba and from different parts of the world. Holguín rejoices and keeps alive the hope of holding an International Festival of Artistic Youths within the already famous May Pilgrimage.

Ludwig Van Beethoven Visits Holguín

2009-05-13T10:36:00.004-04:00

Text and photos: Amauris Betancourt.

Beethoven, German musical genius, goes into the cultural history of Holguín with the interpretation of his Ninth Symphony last May 6^thjust one hour before midnight, in the Mayor General Calixto García Revolution Square.

”It is the third time the piece is played n Cuba, and the first time outdoors”, said Maestro Enrique Perez Mesa, director of the National Symphonic Orquestra (OSN), invited to Holguín to conduct the Holguín Symphonic Orquestra. “It was played last when the Havana Book Fair was devoted to Germany”, added Pérez Mesa.

The execution, done purposely in the eve of its 185^th anniversary when it was premiered in the Vienese Imperial Court, Austria; on may 7, 1824, renders a homage to Beethoven whose musical piece was taken as the official background of the May Pilgrimage celebrated yearly in Holguín.

Singers Maria Dolores Rodriguez, Norkristian Garcia, Marcos Lima and Rigoberto Lopez, the Orfeon Holguin and the Rodrigo Prats Lyrical Theater choirs, along with music students, were praised by the public and by Pérez Mesa who accepted conducting the most important fact from the 16^th May Pilgrimages.

According to Frank Fernandez, “We must feel honored of belonging to a province that has the courage and the cultural capacity of playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

He also appreciated "the effort and the result of playing for the first time in Holguín a work that is the most complex of all musical works ever composed, which demands many resources and good acoustics, but local musicians dared to play it outdoors so that Beethoven could be connected to this so popular, so dear and so famous May Pilgrimage Festival.

Cuba in the Lens of Bernd Harnisch

2009-05-11T14:17:00.002-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt. amauris@radioangulo.icrt.cu

(May. 06) The portrait made a very important contribution to popularizing photography, born in Europe during the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Portraits were not precisely the first images made, but they had much to do with bringing this new technique closer to the people due to its high demand based on reflecting a real image and not a recreated one as in painting.

Making portraits is an art indeed. The first famous photographers devoted to it as such, but based on pictorial compositions to give it aesthetic, a category limited only to painting. This way the portraitist, and the corresponding gender, is the most prolific activity in the art history of the lens.

Then exhibiting portraits and revealing a new thing is quite difficult, but not impossible. Bernd Harnisch, a German photographer living in Holland, comes to Cuba, attracted by the 2009 May Pilgrimage, to show "People and Landscapes" in a photographic proposal going beyond candor.

Harnisch doesn't make things too complicated with deliberate compositions. He is devoted to taking pictures and does without conventions; however, he achieves an aesthetic recompense because he unveils Cuba with psychological and aesthetic tact from the view of a foreigner, not as a tourist that who comes just for pleasure, because Harnisch doesn't only make the picture, he writes rather a story and later hangs the picture. He first looks for the empathy of the photographic technique, and above all, readings in between, he comes closer to the topic.

He takes pictures of people and landscapes, and then backs his photos with brief, interesting stories, direct and allusive; and without maybe intending so, he gets close to Cuban idiosyncrasy. The reward comes in close-ups whose creativity relies on photographing beyond the physical image of a face.

The author of "People and Landscapes" rides on his bicycle all over the country, from Guantánamo to Havana, attentive to the daily thing that may go by unnoticed to a local photographer. He recreates this way a social history through that image of a "Hotel left in ruins," a reminiscence of Cuban colonial architecture, capitalist in service; or that "Stairway" kind of copy of opulence. Or the beautiful colonial village of "Gibara" in its ordinary social landscape. He doesn't leave out Cuban music seen in a "Rapper in Holguín," and jumps to sport in the "Maybe the best black Latin-American chess player," taken out of the streets of Santiago de Cuba, who he has not been able to defeat in a match.

Bernd Harnisch includes the "Curious neighbor, and "The "Family that welcomed me when there was no hotel for me to spend the night, or the "The helpful office worker who told him where to fix the tire of his bicycle", as well as the "Solicitous Salesperson" and the "Children."

Harnisch portraits in a singular way and maks justice to the Island he loves.

The Value of the Image Made Word

2009-05-11T13:30:00.004-04:00

By Alfonso of the Rosary and Betsy Cintra Friday May 08, 2009 alfonso@telecristal.icrt.cu

Photos: Kaloian Santos Cabrera.

(May. 08) The possible, talked-over and many times established dichotomies between journalism and literature are swept away with a flash-light by Kaloian Santos Cabrera in his exhibit “50 times Cuba”.

Forged the way of the daily newspaper Juventud Rebelde, he has known how to look for the short-lived in what is relevant, and the transcendent in everyday life.Kaloian comes to be that sort of rare avis's in journalism, since his words have also the graphic support, with a master complicity who makes sure an image is worth a thousand words.

The ones doing journalism, including those of the audiovisual world, can hardly notice the borders and the lack of visual perspective, while making the news. But Kaloian finds the significance in what the visible, in what is evident, but tinged in an aesthetic way.

Cuban flags play the lead role in different circumstances found by this photographer-journalist, with a prominence that surpasses lances, parades or crowded concentrations.

It is not common to find symbolism associated to a flag attenuated by ideology or history. Cuban idiosincracy emerges in the shape of banners, hanged from the necks of elementary-school students, in taxi bikes, in a simple chipped wall or linked to that so remote sea and protector.

Thousands of words would be able to enclose, perhaps, the intention to define those colors that stay in our idiosyncrasy, but fifty pictures go father, to the nourishing nation's confluence, where Cubans took shelter for the sake of the ones we loved.

The flag Cuban, despite epoch or country, has its own history. And backing all of us, we may not see it sometimes, but it will never slip by unnoticed. It has such an important history not to be seen and its simplicity is a true transparency translated in an obliged reverence.

Kaloian achieves his purpose highlighting one more time that essential things exist.

50 Times Cuba in May Pilgrimage

2009-05-11T12:35:00.004-04:00

Written by Lydia Esther Ochoa / Wednesday, 06 May 2009 / lydiaesther@radioangulo.icrt.cu

Photos: Amauris Betancourt.

Kaloian Santos Cabrera.

(May 06) Among the photo exhibitions during the May Pilgrimage in Holguín, "50 times Cuba" by Kaloian Santos Cabrera stands out.

The exhibit is on disposal to the audience at the UNEAC building, about which Santos Cabrera said that "The idea of organizing an exhibition on the theme came out spontaneously".

“One day while organizing my files I met several pictures from different times where the Cuban flag was the main character. Then the idea of having a photo-essay on our national symbol emerged," added Kaloian.
He explained that "50 times Cuba" is a homage to the fifty years of the Cuban Revolution and that he chose each of the pictures from his archive though the missing ones were made shortly after his decision to expose. Fortunately I found them all but it became kind of an obsession till the last printing moment for the exhibition’s opening day when more photos with the Cuban flags continued to appear," asserted the lens artist.

He took into account similar exhibitions on the topic in the early days of the Cuban Revolution, in the 70’s and in the 80’s, and realized the zeal was challenging. His view as a young artist of these times would be the new thing for the exhibition to be added.
Kaloian’s photos do not only pay homage to the Cuban flag, but also expresses his cultural identity as a young man. That is why, you could see a picture of a child drawing our flag on the street or very big flags in a young people’s parade. He does not forget Cuban flags hanging out the balconies; those ones waving next to Jose Marti’s busts in the country’s schools, neither those present in people’s daily life, in cultural and sport events, where it has a more precise meaning of identity.

Leandro Estupiñan, young journalist and writer, presented the exhibit.

Kaloian Santos Cabrera graduated recently from journalism and has become a peculiar photo reporter. When writing he keeps in mind the look of the artist lens that burbles inside him and when taking a picture then it reins in him the ideas of a journalist.

May Pilgrimage, Holguín 2009

2009-05-07T09:58:00.003-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

This yearly cutural event headed by the Ministry of Culture in Holguín and sponsored by the Saíz Brothers Association (AHS), brings togehther musicians, theater actors and actresses, investigators, dancers, writers, painters, and cultural promoters from all over the world, to Holguín streets to celebrate a Festival of Tradition and Modernity in the third capital of the Island.

PHOTO GALLERY

May Pilgirmage: a Reivindicated Tradition

2009-04-29T09:38:00.004-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

The Franciscan fray Antonio de Alegría started the pilgrimage tradition in Holguín in 1790. The Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS), the juvenile organization of the artistic vanguard of the Island, and students of the university of Holguín, re-vindicates the May Pilgrimage a little more than two centuries later in a secularization process whose motto, left behind by the Holguín scientific Juan Manuel Guash del Monte, was “… because there is not today without yesterday ”.

Then, in the beginning, the festivity was only religious; next it gets a popular tinge. Today it is an artistic melting pot even though culture extended to streets can hardly reveal the few religious services by those who go on a pilgrimage to pay for promises or to worship.

There was not that flight of stairs dying at the top of the Hill of the Cross two centuries ago. It is perhaps a makeshift and a denial to the Tower of Babel. But this joins in culture and that was used as an alibi to misunderstanding.

In the beginning the cross was carried all the way up on shoulders and then town people gradually got together in the skirts of the Cerro Bayado, now Hill of the Cross, to dance, to drink rum, to fight rooster. Now people drink, dance and listen to music after the pilgrimage, where fellow country-men and foreigners played a lead role on the streets of the city full of art like the perfect language of consensus.

Although some prefer not to refer to it as a popular party, it really is, but charged significantly with art. The idea conceived by Cuban moviemaker Humberto Solás in the Gibara International Non-Budget Film Festival had already turned out well in the May Pilgrimages: to bring together different arts in a single festival.

Many events within the May Pilgrimages account for it: the event of Dance in Public city-scapes, the street theater, the performance of artists, the Babel Visual Arts event. The film industry with The Blue Chamber, or investigations in the theoretic event Our Memory. Or the Ibero American Handicraft Fair or that sublime trouba gathering at the Martyrs Forest in the Calixto García Revolución Square, to which people arrive in a singular procession pre-pilgrimage.

It is a massive and cosmopolitan meeting this year, devoted to Montreal, a province from Canada. The biggest delegation comes from there which renders quite important because jazz music comes along with too. Jazz music was not heard that much down here. Vic Vogel, famous jazz player, heads several jazz talents from the French-speaking part of Canada. And from there come visual art school students to share creations and ideas.

Mexico, Spain, Hunduras, South Africa, Chile, Japon… are represented too. Over 32 countries are present in this Holguín pilgrimage and right now foreign invited guests add up to 300 people who can not help aiming at invading public spaces to first-hand welcome, and share with, occasional and habitual city passers-by.

The May Pilgrimage take a walk between tradition and modernity. Its dynamics has a start in the new part of the city to reach the side where the ritual from Fray Antonio de Alegría was born, inspired in the bible passage related to Constantino the Great’s mother, the Hill of the Cross, but today people carry the Holguín Ax on shoulders instead of the cross to remember so the native population. Transition emerges half the way down the week and gives in to modernity. The ax then comes down the Hill and is hoisted way up over one of the the 18-story building located in the place was the city is younger.In such a great effort organization must be safeguarded so the Pilgrimages can make it longer. The Festival participant number will grow with seriousness and the hope to turn it into a World Festival of Young Artists will be more concrete and plausible.

VII Gibara Humberto Solás International Low-Budget Film Festival's Awards

2009-04-28T11:20:00.004-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Cuba, Spain and Chile got the most important prizes in the VII Humberto Solás International Film Festival in Gibara, according to the results made public in the closing ceremony in the Jiba movie from this northeastern beautiful coastal Cuban city in Holguín province.

Dear Bamako, by Omer Oke and Txari Llorente, from Spanish got the full-length fiction film award.

The Cuban moviemaker Enrique Pineda Barnet with The Annunciation; and Fernanda Aljaro and Felipe del Rio, from Chile with the The Super made it in the best rough cut fiction film.

And The Chattered Gods (Cuba), by Ernesto Daranas, got the Public's Special Great Award and Special Mention from the foreign press shared with Querida Bamako, by Omer Oke and Txari Llorente, from Spain.

More Prizes

Carlos Varela Begins National Tour in Holguín

2009-04-21T09:24:00.011-04:00

By Leandro Estupiñán / Sunday, April 19, 2009. leandro@ahora.cu.
Photos: Amauris Betancourt.
It happened in the Marqueta Square; there was a red ceramics factory many years ago, a concert hall to-be now. I thought the place inappropriate, but I was wrong. The spot proved to be rather small for a national tour starting concert which will take troubadour Carlos Varela along to 12 other places in

Cuba

. Today, Sunday April 19, he will be in Gibara, in the Humberto Solás International Non-Budget Film Festival, where he has been, year in year out, to return his affection and friendship to his late friend moviemaker Humberto Solás, who passed away last September 2008.

Varela wore black (as he always does) and had five talented musicians keep him company. Singer Diana Fuentes sticks out. Down, before the stage, a sea of young people (teenagers and thirty-and-odds people) and some other from different ages. The first song was 25 thousand lies on the truth. The last The woodcutter without forest, a usual request from fans included in his CD Like a fish (1995).

The first time I listened to Carlos Varela, Like a fish was an underground hit. He was not played in the radio when I got to Havana in 1995 for the second time. Varela had a handkerchief to cover his hair and held a cup at the height of the nose. With a hand, he covered the mouth of the container inside which a fish swam.
The poster, on a street lamp post in Reina street, promoted a concert and, according to what I knew many years later, it had turned out to be legendary due to the crowd it brought together and because, for the first time, he was thrown coins at when singing Coins to the air as a promotion to the video clip where the very Grethel, the muse whom Varela saw through Jim Morrison's eyes, was dancing. It had happened almost one year before.

I found that poster many times those days. The CD Like a fish rendered a successful production with fabulous songs like Small dreams, Family pictures, Habaname or Like an angel. He included also harsh criticisms to Cuban reality like Politics does not fit in the sugar bowl or The woodcutter without forest. It was not difficult to understand why his songs were radioed, “only sometimes”, (if by any chance they were radioed in the nineties), even though his friend and protector Silvio Rodríguez had said that “the ones plotting against Carlos Varela erred, because they think him very hypercritical."

The troubadour questions the world around him, but his criticism is based on a hypersensitivity that seems to get hold of him. He sings to an amusement park tearing apart, to the city getting destroyed, to a misunderstood young girl, to a relative fleeing the country, to contradictions landing on his nose and, next, he warns: “If you knew the pain I feel when I sing to you and you do not understand this love”. It has been thus since Jalisco Park (1989) where he included themes like Guillermo Tell or Tropicollage and where you can notice the personality of someone born in April 1963, four years after 1959.A curious thing turned out to me with Varela. When I got to Havana to major in journalism in 2 000, I ran into the old poster that had confronted me with the musician. Then, he was launching Clouds (2 000), a CD that, although with dreadful songs like Walls and doors, he seemed to me stepping backwards, a capitulation in his background as an artist and reality iconoclast. Maybe I believed Varela had fallen down because I only liked that song out of Clouds.

It was logical, I thought: The hardest years seemed to have gone, and with them all poetical Carlos Varela's amphibology met an end. I was mistaken again. He came out with Seven (2 003) and so dreadful lyrics like the one adorning the melody in Behind the window-glass, a song where he came back stabbing us with a cold and cruel sensibility shouting: “The ones that fled cry, the ones that stay cry more”. That was the Carlos Varela I had always been interested in. The troubadour whose lyrics of love stem from reality and its symbols and circumstances. Now, after having turned 46, he has started this national tour to promote his new work, entitled It is not the end. It is not either for his career: He is a mature man; Voice and fans keep him company. Last night (Saturday, April 18), the Marqueta Square was full with young people singing his songs. And I discovered him in a poster, stuck on a Havana street lamp post in the nineties!The image in the poster stayed there, two or three years right after the XXI century had already begun. I remember they were four pieces of a scratched paper surviving time when I saw it last. I was heading down Reina street to do something I do not remember, while a man sold orange juice nearby the street lamp post. He knew those things were not big things, but they were his dreams. What was it supposed be done about it?

Inauguration Day from VII Humberto Solás Non-Budget Film Festival in Gibara

2009-04-14T14:39:00.006-04:00

By José Miguel Ávila.

Photos: Amauris Betancourt.

Sergio Benvenuto, Film Festival director, reading inauguration words.

The usual participants inauguration parade, the fireworks, the movie screening of Humberto Solás’ A November’s Day (1972), and the inauguration concert by afro-rock group Síntesis marked out the first day of the VII Humberto Solás Non-Budget International Film Festival in Gibara.

More pictures

Gibara, the Crabs's White Village

2009-04-13T09:16:00.008-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Gibara, the beautiful coastal head city from the municipality named likewise in the province of Holguín, at Cuban Northeastern, was founded back in January 16, 1817. It is also known as the White Village.

Gibara is noted for its history, culture and its biodiversity in its flora and fauna, in addition to the architecture that turned it into National Monument in 2004.The railroad, introduced in 1893 from Holguín, brought Gibara commercial prosperity. It lives now on cattle raising, agriculture, fishing and tourism.

The city, – with its generous, solidary, affectionate and a little proud people -75 thousand inhabitants spread in 630 square Km.–, hosts every year, since 2002, the International Non-Budget Film Festival founded by deceased Cuban moviemaker Humberto Solás.

Calixto García park, old military square.

A replica from the Statue of Liberty, in the center of the Calixto García park, dedicated to mothers.The Museum for Colonial Arts among the most important collections of the country. The Parish Church embedded in the Calixto Garcia park.
The Batería Fernando VII turned Gibara into the second walled city in Cuba to protect the city against the attacks of corsairs and pirates.

Gibara Bay houses a port since 1822.

Recently, the overnight from September 7, 2008, an ungrateful guest destroyed The Village Blanca: the hurricane Ike.

JotaCruz wins Prizes in First Photonature Contest

2009-04-13T08:39:00.005-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt.

Juan Miguel Cruz Gómez, JotaCruz, won the first and second prizes in the First Photonature Contest, Holguín 2009, while Raciel Cruz Peña, from the new generation of photographers, got the third award, made public during the inauguration ceremony at the Electa Arenal ward from the city Art Center. The series Life in the Birama Wet Lowland, by JotaCruz, depicts –in excellent compositions, from different angles and in the right moment- different places and species from Birama Wet Lowland at the province of Granma. Biodiversity, the second rewarded piece by the same creator, approaches, in portraits, endemic birds from the area of Cupeycillo, located at the municipality of Gibara. The photographer feasts on the beauty and charisma of these endemic birds turning the area into a meeting place for scientists, photographers, painters, naturalists and birders.

Raciel Cruz Peña got the third award with Equilibrium, where he goes beyond the natural hedonism of our Cuban fauna and the use of good photographic technique, to a symbiotic message of communion between human beings and animals on Earth. The jury board, presided by Nils Navarro and made up besides of photographers Amaurys González and Juan Pablo Carreras, awarded too four Mentions: Carlos Alberto Ferrá for A day after, and to Luis Catalá Gurri, William Lucas Rodríguez and Alexander Sánchez Rivas for their works Hope Nets, The alert spectator and First Steps, respectively.

Nils Navarro, the photocontest president, decided to acknowled the support from Trimagen and Photo Service in the printing process. He also stated his desire to have a yearly Photonature Contest to call society’s eye on the protection of the environment and the Cuban flora and fauna.

The exhibit hosts 61 photographic works from 32 professional and amateur photographers including visual art students. It will be open to the public for a month and will be shown next in Gibara during The Community Festival “Protecting Birds” from May 18 to 24 sponsored by several national and international institutions.

Holguín Closes Successfully Classical Music Festival

2009-04-04T12:56:00.004-04:00

Text and photos: Amauris Betancourt.

The large audience packing the Ismaelillo movie-theater to enjoy the closing ceremony of the XXVI Classical Music Festival approves the claim of having a concert hall, in the building currently, in Holguín city. Several people could enjoy the concert but had no seats in a room that turned out too small for such a Festival held yearly.

However, such a statement is not based on space availability but on the growing quality of Holguín musicians, ranked among the best nationwide, according to some noted figures attending the Festival like Frank Fernandez, Honorary President, maestro Guido Lopez-Gavilán, vice-president, and the absent guitarist Leo Brower, National Movie Prize.

The event’s closing ceremony started with a special tribute to pianist Frank Fernandez, born in the city of Mayarí, Holguin province.

The Holguín Symphonic Orchestra (OSH in Spanish), headed by Orestes Saavedra, opened the musical banquet with the interpretation of Vals Cubano (Cuban Waltz).

Then the OSH invited Colombian cellist Laura Ospina first and Italian clarinet player Ivan Petruzziello later to play with.

The OSH’s general director, Harold Ricardo Corella, had already praised Petruzziello in a press conference: “He is young but very talented."

Mexico joined in with maestro Marco Natanael Espinosa as director and soprano Alejandra Lopez who interpreted “Piensa en mi” (Think of me) by Mexican composer Agustin Lara.

Then Alejandra sang “Jurame” (Swear), accompanied by Cuban tenor Yunior Galano, a piece by also Mexican composer Maria Greever. Maestro Natanael Espinosa was given a warm welcome by the audience.

The Gala had an excellent closing with maestro Guido Lopez-Gavilan’s Guagancó, Orfeón Holguin and the Codanza dance company dancing it.

"Music has been without a doubt the queen of the Classical Music Festival in Holguin…," said Jorge Luis Sanchez Grass, the artistic general director. Each edition overcomes precedent ones, and ideas and dreams hardly stop but go on far from being utopian. Let’s see what will happen next year.

Then we are in debt with Harold Ricardo Corella, one of the most important figures in the organization of the event these last years. God willing, we will have more room next year, because the La Periquera Museum is too small for such a big event as the the Classical Music Festival.

Tribute to Cuban pianist Frank Fernández

2009-04-03T15:11:00.005-04:00

Text and photos: Amauris Betancourt.

Cuban Pianist Frank Fernández was paid homage to at the La Periquera Solenm Hall as one of the activities of the XXVI National Classical Music Concert Festival, for his half a century of artistic life accompanied by success nationally and internationally.The Orfeón Holguín Choir played two works: “Vertigo of rain”, Frank's text and music by Guido López Gavilán, and “Dream that sings the breeze.”The Pizzicato Quartet played a version of Ausencia, written by A. Villalón.Next soprano Norkristián García sang The Afternoon from Sindo Garay.Karla Martínez, to the piano, and Frank Ernesto Fernández at the oboe.Harold Ricardo joined in with his violin with Sequence of Solitude and Rebirth in January, this last a homage to the Cuban Revolution by Frank Fernández.The Holguín Chamber Orchestra, Karla, Frank Ernesto, and Ellis Regina in Adagio for the Oboe, Cello, Cuerdas and organ from G. Zipolli.At the end the Raúl Gómez García art school infantile choir closed.A special Recognition was given to Frank: “Things like these can not be thanked with words”, he said filled with emotion, heading for the piano and did it in the language he knows better.

XXVI Holguín Classic Music Concert Meeting’s Inauguration

2009-04-03T15:09:00.003-04:00

Text and photo: Amauris Betancourt.

The 26th Holguín Classic Music Concert Meeting started 9.00 a.m. with a pilgrimage to the city cemetery to pay homage to Holguín late musicians José María Ochoa, Raúl Camayd and Manuel de Jesus Leyva, three outstanding exponents of the Cuban culture.Next a concert was held at Julio Grave de Peralta park by the Cacocun municipality Concert Band.The day went on with a conference on the Contribution of the Holguín Orfeón Choir to the Cuban choral art at the Iberia-American House by musicologist Ana Luisa Tamayo, Ana Arriaza, founder and first director of the Orfeón Holguín Choir, Marilín Aldana, its present-day director and the founding member María Fermina Durán and Oliver Hechavarría, who remembered its founding in 1964.The inauguration concert, in the evening, included two choir from Eastern Cuba: the one from Santiago de Cuba and the one from Holguín. The latter is paid homage to for its 45th anniversary together with late musician Rodrigo Prats in his centenary and to Frank Fernández's 50 years of artistic life.Headed by master Guido López Gavilán the inauguration concert came to an end with a Messiah selection, Glory to God in the Heights, Amén and Aleluya, from Händel, brilliantly interpreted by the Santiago de Cuba and Holguín Choirs, and the Holguín Chamber Orchestra.

De Primera Mano, a Radio Portrait of Holguín

2009-04-03T15:08:00.004-04:00

By Amauris Betancourt Gomez 2009 / amauris@radioangulo.icrt.cu

I remember my grandfather at the house door with his amputated leg sitting on a taburete (kind of a stool), the radio on another similar piece of furniture; and he, focused on the “De Primera Mano” (First Hand) (DPM), a news program with its group of journalists and correspondents from all municipalities of the Cuban eastern province of Holguín. Few dared to bother him, but his grandsons unconscious of his attention on the news radio program whose broadcast have always started at 5.00 P.M. by the CMKO Radio Angulo station.

Felix Hernández in the center, founder; and Osvaldo and Enma radio announcers for the news boom section.

The DPM headquarters staff.

I never imagine one day I could take a picture of those radio voices. Today they are my colleagues. And I can clearly claim they portray Holguín and its people in their journalism work. They are the people’s voice along with the ¡Ahora! provincial weekly paper and the municipal New Holguín radio station, founded some more than 10 years ago.

For twenty years now DPM makes due recognition to its name – no go-between, but its own first hand sources; the best news; that one nobody knows; the last minute or non disclosed news yet. Moises Anazco, today Havana’s Radio Progreso station journalist, said a sentence from which Felix Hernandez Rodriguez, the DPM lead voice, chose the name for the prime time newscast, among the most popular program broadcast by CMKO competing with many musical and vaudeville programs.DPM has won several national and provincial prizes in recognition to the respect by Holguín radio goers and from other neighboring provinces.Some of the DPM makers said to the ¡Ahora! Weekly that: "… the space gives the chance to voice viewpoint and the critical analysis" (journalist Arnaldo Vargas Castro), that "it came to revolutionize the radio…" (journalist Magda Betancourt); “it is a challenge to professional work as it favors dialog with all municipalities in Holguín province (Maribel Obregon); “all the professionals from the radio stations do their work interactively, either from the radio studios or radio stations in all the municipalities" (Rigoberto Gonzalez Liminana – founder and the program director); while Rene Martinez focused on the sound track - coherent, interactive and unique, which he designed together with Raimundo Peña.So that DPM is a family member for journalist Lydia Esther Ochoa; a great upgrading source for Luis Ernesto Urbino, sound designer; ours as well as the people’s, journalist Elvia Mulet says; a spectacular spike at the saying of Ernesto Rondon, its main sport commentator, of course without forgetting many of its founders as Nicolas de la Pena.DPM was founded on March 31, 1989. Its founders along with the new generation of journalists and correspondents join to celebrate the date, first in the ExpoHolguin fair and exhibition ground and later in a special live broadcast of the program at the La Marqueta square.

Working session.

A Workshop on the radio program to make rank at the heightest for goers was held in ExpoHolguin, its contributions, its ups and downs anecdotes were dealt by the DPM doers.