Concert by Cuban jazz star Roberto Fonseca closed Jazz Plaza 2019 Festival

The 34th International Jazz Plaza Festival winded up Sunday evening with a concert by renowned young Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca at Havana’s National Theater Avellaneda Hall.  

The show titled “The Cuban Voices” included the performance of the band Temperamento and the so called Diva del Buena Vista Social Club, Omara Portuondo, as a special guest. Also scheduled for the evening’s closing concert: singers Bárbara Yanes, Eme Alfonso, Haila María Mompié, Ivette Cepeda, María Victoria Rodríguez and rappers La Reina and La Real. Sax player Michel Herrera, singer Paulo FG and composer Juan de la Cruz Antomarchi were also set to perform for  “The Cuban Voices” in a mixture of music genre.

For a week the Cuban capital and the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba were the venues of concerts and jam sessions with a diversity of styles performed by 50 international musicians from the United States, Spain, Argentina, Italy, Colombia, Uruguay and Brazil.

International jazz celebrities have stood out among guests, including battery players Dave Weckl and Dennis Chambers, bassist Jeff Berlin, flautist Néstor Torres, pianist Arturo O'Farrill and singer Patricia Kraus.

Britain’s Joss Stone, Cuba’s Dafnis Prieto, Brazil’s Rodrigo Sosa, Australia’s Emma Pask and the US’s Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans gave luster to the festival, as well as event’s founder, Cuban maestro Bobby Carcacéss, and other younger Cuban jazz musicians, such as  Héctor Quintana, the López-Nussa brothers, AfroCuban jazz singer Daymé Arocena and counter bassist Gastón Joya.