Cuba celebrates Latin Music Institute’s 104th anniversary

Cuba will celebrate the 104th anniversary of the Latin Music Institute (ILM) on Friday. From its headquarters in Mexico, the ILM honors regional culture and its greatest exponents both in and outside Latin America. 
 
 
Since 2018, Cuban singer-songwriter and cultural promoter Daniel Martin has served as the president of the institution. He has received notable awards, including the Benito Juarez Medal and three Doctor Honoris Causa degrees in Mexico. Under his leadership, the ILM maintains an active presence in both Europe and the Americas

From the icy French Alps to the warm Ecuadorian Amazon region, the ILM is celebrating its foundation this February 21 in several countries, as a healing thread that as of 1921 united the culture and the wounds of a country emerging from a decade of civil war.

Martin told Prensa Latina that the founding of the institution is linked to the life of Alvaro Obregon, who seeing his career as a musician frustrated after losing his right arm in 1915, promoted the development of the institute, which has since become the home, par excellence, of Latin American musicians.

He recalled that as radio appeared in 1922, sound films in 1930, and phonograms, Mexican culture expanded and connected with others, such as Cuban culture, from which he took genres like bolero, son, and trova, among others, to bring them to greater levels of exposure and popularity.