From Nate:
I’m just getting my feet back under me after an incredible trip to Cuba for the first CeltFest Cuba. Below is an unedited video from the graveside of Eduardo Lorenzo the “Last Piper of Havana.” Until his pupil Alejandro (the piper on the far right) found him, Eduardo believed with him would die all of the knowledge of Cuban piping. Luckily, Alejandro was able to learn piping and pipe making from “the Old Man” before his death a few years ago. Now there are three flourishing pipe bands in Havana.
Here is a great example of how the week felt. We were in Havana, but we were sharing the music and dance that we know. Below, the folks from Cape Breton danced a square set at the “Scottish Concert” in Havana while Ward MacDonald and Tim Chaisson from PEI played the tunes.
Here is the article I wrote about my trip to Cuba that was published in the Pipers’ Gathering Weekend Booklet:
CeltFest Cuba 2010
By Nate Banton
60 percent of the people of Cuba are descended from Spanish immigrants. Many of those immigrants came from the two Celtic Spanish autonomous communities, Galicia and Asturias. Also, 25 percent of the Cuban people are descended from Europeans, many of them Irish. These historic and cultural roots, like those from Africa, have greatly influenced the music of Cuba.
And that’s how bagpipes enter the picture. Havana has a vibrant Celtic music scene, and two Bagpipe bands; one plays the pipes and music of Asturias, while the other plays the pipes and music of Galicia. The membership of the two bands is drawn largely from the enthusiastic youth attending the University of Havana. Some of these pipers, playing under the name Gaiteros De La Habana, or the Pipers of Havana, performed at the international Celtic music festival “Celtic Colours” in 2008. It was there that a friendship began between musicians from Cape Breton, and the Cuban Gaiteros.
This friendship grew when Cape Breton Fiddlers Chrissy Crowley and Dawn Beaton made a trip to Havana in 2009. While catching up with their Cuban piper friends, they were introduced to Fiddle Club de la Habana, which included Angelica Gongora, who had already learned many Cape Breton standards off CDs brought back to Cuba by the Havana pipers. While in Havana, the Canadian fiddlers began to see a very close parallel between the two islands of Cape Breton and Cuba, at least when it came to their shared Celtic culture. Chrissy noted in her article for CelticLife Magazine, “in parallel with the music scene of my native Nova Scotia, traditional music is enjoying a resurgence thanks to the interest of Cuba’s younger generation”. Both islands had come close to loosing that culture. In Cuba and Cape Breton the previous generation of musicians thought they might be the end of their musical line, but that new enthusiastic generation swept in at the last moment and now the music and culture of both islands has reached a greater level of popularity. A plot was hatched then, to form the Canadian-Cuban Celtic Society to foster further ties between the two islands.
It was after their Canadian friends left Cuba that the Cuban musicians came up with the idea of CeltFest Cuba. Having seen the unique manner that Celtic Colours spreads its festival into the heart of the communities in Cape Breton, the Cubans thought they could do something similar within Havana. Celtic Colours uses its local musicians as the foundation of the festival, and then brings in many International artists to fill out the frame. Since there are many talented musicians playing Galician and Asturian music in Havana and the surrounding provinces, all the Cubans needed were a few musicians from away to make a real festival happen.
They asked the non-Cuban members of the Canadian-Cuban Celtic Society if they could help. They said yes, and a team of Maritime musicians was assembled. It should be mentioned here that Canadians can travel freely to and from Cuba. Unlike in the States, they have no trade ban against Cuba. In fact, Cuba is a common vacation destination for Canadians.
From Cape Breton Island, the musicians who performed in Cuba were fiddler Andrea Beaton, fiddler Chrissy Crowley, Gaelic Singer Mary Jane Lamond, and smallpiper Ryan MacDonald (now living in Victoria, B.C.). From Prince Edward Island, it was guitarist Tim Chaisson and fiddler Ward MacDonald. Our highland piper for the week was Ryan MacDonald’s Partner, the prize winning piper and drummer James P. Troy from Victoria, British Columbia, who co-operates JWT Reedmakers, maker of the MacAllister reed. And with sponsorship from the Irish government organization Culture Ireland, we had the Family Band the Begleys, concertina player and fiddler Niamh Ni Charra, and singer and Bodhran player Liam Ó Maonlaí (who is actually the lead singer of the popular band Hothouse Flowers).
And then there was me. I was very lucky to be hosted by the Canadian-Cuban Celtic Society to attend the first CeltFest Cuba. The tireless Canadian organizer Lisa Butchart got my name from fiddler Ward MacDonald who is the prime fiddle teacher at the teaching weekend I help run in Maine. Lisa was interested to have me attend because of the strong interest in pipe making in Cuba.
Most of the instruments the two bands in Havana own have been donated by people in Spain. Cubans make about $15 a month, so saving for a set of pipes is out of the question. There aren’t enough pipes for all the pipers, so the band shares what they have. However, wonderful “exotic” wood grows naturally in Cuba, and the leader of the Galician band in Havana, Alejandro Gispert, has been making pipes in his spare time for several years now. Since one of the main purposes of CeltFest Cuba was cultural exchange, and since the Cubans would have a pipe maker on hand, Lisa thought it would be great to bring me along.
The festival itself, about a week long, was a very interesting event. The organizers wanted the festival to seep into the pores of Havana, so we went all over the place. It was great fun to see different parts of the city. To get anywhere in Havana, we would take a taxi close to where we needed to be, but, because most of the streets of Havana are very narrow, like in old parts of European cities, walking was a necessity. So we ended up doing a lot of walking (read schlepping) with instruments (and photo and video equipment!).
I’d break down the events of the festival into four main categories: Concerts, parades, workshops, and miscellaneous session-like events. Each day we did a least two, sometimes three of these events. Despite the small scale of this first CeltFest, there were sometimes two events happening at the same time in different parts of the city. It was maybe a bit early for this, but as the festival grows, this will become necessary. We ended most nights at the rather oddly named Café O’Reilly. I think the organizers thought it appropriate to have the nightly sessions at an “Irish Pub”, but Café O’Reilly was Irish in name only. They served the same two Cuban beers that every bar in Cuba serves, Crystal and Buccaneer (I prefer Buccaneer, the slightly darker of the two), and, according to our Cuban friends, food that was, “not very good for the money”. But Café O’Reilly was comfortable, and had almost enough room for all of us.
All of the workshops were lead by the non-Cuban musicians, the student body being almost entirely Cuban. As more people from outside of Cuba come to the Festival, I think we could see Cuban musicians teaching workshops of their own. The workshops this year included Scottish and Irish Fiddle classes, Cape Breton Step Dance, Bodhran playing, highland piping, and more.
Highlights from the week’s festival activities included: The “Scottish Concert”, which was the time for the Canadian musicians to shine. This Concert was held at the Poetry House in Old Havana, which was an open air stage surrounded on four sides by old Havana buildings. It was a beautiful setting for a concert with great sound. And like every day we were there, it was bright and sunny and not too too hot.
All of the workshops were held in a grand old building called the Centro Gallego, where we could peek into classrooms where students were learning traditional dances and music. Watching the young Cuban dance students (all dressed up like the cast of Fame and wearing Converse All-Stars for some reason) learn Cape Breton step dancing was a real treat. Ward MacDonald played fiddle for the class, and Chrissy Crowley taught the steps. The students, none of which really spoke English it seemed, picked up the Cape Breton dancing remarkably well, and with great enthusiasm.
The highland pipe class was also great fun to witness. There is a strong interest in Highland piping among the Cuban pipers. In fact, two of the Cuban pipers own sets of Highland pipes (Pakistan-made pipes I think). James Troy and Ryan MacDonald led the class, and gave a fifteen-minute lecture/demonstration about all parts of highland piping. The Cuban pipers were enthralled. Where they got them from I don’t know, but they had video and sound recorders going for the whole thing.
When it was time to give the pipes a go, every Cuban wanted a chance to try. There was one set of highland pipes to go around. I was particularly impressed by Arturo, the leader of the Asturian Pipe band. He had never tried highland pipes before, but he was blowing beautiful tone after 2 minutes.
The last full day I was in Cuba, the Galician band played a parade for a yearly street festival in Havana. It was like we were in an old movie. The streets, as previously mentioned, were very narrow, so the parade was not like a parade in the States, where spectators are well separated from the parade performers. It was like we were all in the parade. We were swept up the street all together with the pipe band playing away in our midst.
The emotional highlight of the week had to be our visit to the Havana Cemetery, Necropolis Cristóbal Colón, which is the second largest in the world with 2 million graves in 135 acres. Havana itself has 2 million residents, so the city is currently balanced between the living and the dead. The statuary and monuments were gorgeous. It was like we were in an outdoor museum.
We were there to pay our respect to two of Havana’s former residents. The first was Mary McCarthy Gomez Cueto, who was born in Newfoundland, Canada. Mary had met a rich Cuban’s son while studying music in Boston. They fell in love and Mary moved to Havana with her husband in 1923. Her husband died in 1951, and Castro’s revolution happened in 1959. Her husband had set up a million dollar bank account for her in Boston, but she could not access it unless she left. She refused to leave her beloved Havana, despite loosing her lavish lifestyle to the revolution. She taught piano lessons to the children of ambassadors to make ends meet. She died in her home in April of 2009, 24 days short of her 109th birthday.
The second Cuban’s grave we visited was that of Eduardo Lorenzo. Eduardo was literally the last piper left in Havana before the recent resurgence of interest in piping. At one point he believed that with his death would end piping in Havana. As a child, Alejandro Gispert, the leader of the Galician pipe band in Havana, saw Eduardo playing pipes. He didn’t see him again until years later, but he never forgot. Alejandro was given a job at a museum to refurbish old items for display. This included furniture and art, but also old musical instruments, including a couple of Gaitas, the Spanish bagpipe. He tried unsuccessfully to get the pipes back to playing shape, and so decided to seek out Eduardo. He found Eduardo as an old man, no longer able to play. By talking to Eduardo, and bringing him his attempts at making pipes from scratch, Alejandro was taught to make and to play Cuban Gaitas. And from there Gaita playing in Havana was reborn. The pipers, including Alejandro, played a beautiful slow piece with harmony at Eduardo’s graveside.
While there were many bumps and bruises during the first CeltFest Cuba, it was agreed by all to have been a huge success. There were several things most of us agreed needed to be changed for next year. The biggest of which was where to stay during the week. We stayed at a two star resort hotel by the beach (what a beautiful beach!) outside of Havana. It was nice to have a place to relax, and was good for the wallet, but it necessitated a 30 minute bus ride into Havana, and then usually a taxi ride and a long walk every morning. It included all meals and drinks (one bar staying open all night long), but we felt we missed out on some of the full Cuban experience by sequestering ourselves that way. It made it difficult to hang out with our Cuban friends, as they weren’t really allowed at the resort.
All in all, CeltFest Cuba was quite the experience. All of us agreed that the word for the week was inspiring. The musicians in Cuba have a lot of hurtles and hoops to get over and through to play music, but they find a way. I’ve never seen such enthusiasm. I think CeltFest Cuba is going to grow to a major international Festival. And I hope I can be there to see it grow.