First edition of María Dolores Rodríguez contest kicks off in Holguin

The first edition of the María Dolores Rodríguez in Memoriam contest for young lyric singers begins this Tuesday in the city of Holguín and will continue until July 6, in honor of this emblematic figure of bel canto in Cuba.

Organized by the Holguin branch of the University of the Arts, the competition will end with the awarding of the Náyade Proenza Grand Prize, established in honor of the first director of the teaching unit in Holguin, who stood out for the training of artists and contributions to pedagogy that made her worthy of several awards and decorations, explained Isabel García Granados, dean of the branch, in statements to ACN.

She added that the contest is held as an academic exercise to motivate students of the specialty of singing to study and care of the works they perform and, in turn, be able to face the rigor of a competition that measures style and stage presence.
The participants will compete in two categories, one comprising the students of the preparatory course, and the other grouping the second and third year students, and the order will be defined by a draw to be made after the presentation of the jury, he stressed.

The program of activities of the event includes an exchange with important figures, among them, with soprano María Luisa Clark, tenor Julio Proenza, actor and singer Martín Arranz, and the awards ceremony will take place on the 5th.
The María Dolores Rodríguez in Memoriam competition for young performers pays tribute to the former leading figure and general director of the Teatro Lírico Rodrigo Prats, who died as a result of Covid-19, and who, as a soloist, performed on stages in more than 20 countries in Asia, Europe and America, with approximately 40 works in her repertoire, including operas, operettas, zarzuelas and concert pieces.

It is also a project aimed at strengthening the development of artistic expression in the only branch in the country that teaches the profile of singing outside Havana.