The singer was one of the representatives of the Nueva Trova, this musical genre based on poetic and committed texts arose in the wake of the Cuban Revolution of 1959. He died in Madrid at the age of 79.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
Cuban singer and composer Pablo Milanés died on Tuesday, November 22, at the age of 79 in Madrid, where he had been hospitalized for several days.
“It is with great pain and sadness that we regret to inform you that Master Pablo Milanés died this morning on November 22 in Madrid,” wrote his agency on the singer’s official Facebook page.
” La culture cubaine est en deuil après le décès ” de Pablo Milanés, tweeted Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz. At the announcement of his death, social networks in Cuba were flooded with tribute message and support for his family, embellished with photos and videos of the artist.
The singer had recently been hospitalized in Madrid. He had been suffering for several years from an “onco-hematological disease” which had forced him to settle in 2017 in the Spanish capital to “receive a treatment which did not exist in his country”, said his artistic agency On November 11, indicating that his condition was “stable”. He had canceled concerts provided for in Spain and the Dominican Republic.
Support of the Castro Revolution before moving away
Born February 24, 1943 in Bayamo, in the east of Cuba, Pablo Milanés had started his career in the 1960s. First a follower of the genre “feeling”, a musical style with romantic themes influenced by northern jazz -Américan, the young singer then turns to the song song.
He joins Silvio Rodriguez in the beginnings of the Nueva Trova, this musical genre based on poetic and committed texts arose in the wake of the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and the World Movement of “Folk-Music”.
He had supported Fidel Castro’s revolution at his beginnings, before moving away from it. After the historical demonstrations of July 2021 in Cuba, where thousands of people had descended in the streets of “we are hungry”, “freedom” and “down the dictatorship”, Pablo Milanees had strongly criticized the government. “It is irresponsible and absurd to blame and repress a people who have made sacrifices and given everything for decades to support a regime which, in the end, only imprisoned it,” he deplored.
A farewell with farewell to Havana
Pablo Milanés has recorded dozens of albums, created film music and put many poems in music. This great admirer of the French composer Michel Legrand (1932-2019) – He said he saw fifteen times the film Les Umbluies de Cherbourg (1964) – received two Latinos Grammys in 2006 (Best album) and in 2015 (Prix d ‘ musical excellence).
Although living in Spain, he managed to maintain by his music an unwavering link with the Cubans. During a particularly moving concert in Havana in June, some 10,000 spectators had resumed one after the other its great successes, such as Yolanda and Vivir. After three years without coming to Cuba, the singer who moved with difficulty, had returned to his audience for this recital which had also had a farewell taste.
He had a voice “of infinite island and firm land (…) sweet and at the same time powerful”, said of him José Maria Vitier, pianist, composer and his close collaborator.