2024-01-20 14:55:15
Published on: 01/20/2024 – 3:55 p.m. Modified on: 01/20/2024 – 3:53 p.m.
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Entitled “Insular Night”, this concert, magnified by immersive technology, is the result of the collaboration between José Maria Vitier, renowned Cuban pianist and composer, and the French documentary filmmaker Dominique Roland, also director of the Enghien Arts Center. les-bains, near Paris.
“It seems to me that the word +immersion+ is perfect” to describe the concert, explains José Maria Vitier, 70, who notably composed the music for ten Cuban films, including the famous “Strawberry and Chocolate” (1993).
Installed between two canvases on which images are projected, which thanks to sensors can also react to the movements of the music, the quartet formed by the pianist and three musicians appears totally immersed in a multidimensional dreamlike reality which pays homage to Cuba in general and in Havana in particular.
Cuban musician Niurka Gonzalez during the rehearsal of the show “Insular Night”, at the National Theater of Cuba in Havana, January 19, 2024 © ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP
These are “digital aspects which become organic. IT is not in the foreground, it fades into the background. What is interesting is the interaction of the image with the artists”, underlines Dominique Roland, who has been filming Cuba for around thirty years.
Thanks to digital technology, “we work with effects which are done in real time and which ultimately interact visually with the interpretation” of the musicians on stage, continues the artistic director, who is accompanied in the Cuban capital by four French technicians for setting up the show.
By closely linking images and music, it is a question of provoking for the spectator a “new lyricism”, adds José Maria Vitier, who offers in this concert a musical journey reflecting the eclecticism of his career, moving from jazz to classical, traditional Cuban rhythms to film music.
Cuban musicians Jose Maria Vitier, Niurka Gonzalez, Abel Costa and Yaroldy Abreu during the rehearsal of their show “Island Night”, at the National Theater of Cuba in Havana, January 19, 2024 © ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP
On stage, the pianist is accompanied by Niurka Gonzalez on flute, Abel Costa on double bass and Yaroldy Abreu on percussion.
The concert is played as a prologue to the Jazz Plaza International Festival which takes place from January 21 to 28 in Havana and Santiago de Cuba (east).
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