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Año VIII |
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Interview with
Amaury Pérez
Peace
Without Borders
is a beautiful project
Yinett Polanco - La
Jiribilla
A CubaNews translation. Edited by
Walter Lippmann.
International news agencies have been reporting recent statements by
Amaury Pérez Vidal about the concert Colombian rocker Juanes will give
in Cuba on September 20. By taking Peace Without Borders in
Havana’s Revolution Square, Juanes will bring together many voices from
Latin America and the Island. Questions like where this idea comes from,
how it has evolved and what the expectations are were the starting point
for an interview with this Cuban singer-songwriter who assures Peace
must be given a concert every single day.
Tell me
about Juanes’s visit to Cuba in June and how he suggested the idea of
giving a concert in Havana?
We have to go back in time a little bit. I met Juanes in one of Televisa
network’s studios in Mexico, in 2000 if I remember well. We were both
promoting CDs, in his case his first solo one, I think, but I don’t even
remember which mine was. Anyway, he came to me, we respectfully said
hello to each other; then he asked me if the Cubans knew his music, and
told me he was very fond of Silvio [Rodriguez]’s and Vicente [Feliu]’s
work. About a month and a half ago they called me from our Instituto de
la Música to tell me that Juanes was in Cuba with his beautiful project
Peace Without Borders and he wanted to sing to peace together
with some other fellow artists. We had dinner that evening; he asked
Silvio and I if we wanted in. We both said yes. Juanes came for 24
hours, and it’s been his only visit to Havana yet, and Vice-minister of
Culture Abel Acosta appointed me local organizer of the event for the
Cuban side, since there’s no production infrastructure in Cuba for an
initiative such as Peace Without Borders and I have some experience with
this kind of large-scale performances. It was also at that dinner that
the good idea came up of inviting the band Los
Van Van to play in the concert. It was a get-together that some
colleagues who admire one another had on a nice, quiet evening.
According to the Colombian artists, other world-famous Latin American
singers could join him in this concert. How important is that to Cuba,
its musicians and its people?
This concert at the Revolution Square –chosen for its capacity to hold
large crowds, and we estimate an attendance of around 500,000– is
important because our people, and especially our youths, will get to see
the artists they admire in the flesh, a chance they not always enjoy.
A
far-reaching media campaign has been launched against the concert,
mainly in Miami. However, many other renowned artists from all over the
world have performed in Cuban public squares before. Why these attacks,
and what’s your opinion about them?
If you look at the names of those who oppose this concert you will see
many of them are well-known people who come to the fore every time Cuba
makes news over a noble cause. They’re the same old faces and
signatures: mercenary politicians, hopelessly conceited, envious
individuals whose careers have been consigned to oblivion, aligned with
the most impure and stubborn elements of the so-called Cuban exile
community in Florida, who under the false pretense of defending the
interests of the Cubans in the island try to undermine any rapprochement
between the peoples, not only between Cuba and the United States, but
even worse, between the Cubans who live there and those who live here. I
don’t understand why they want to keep us, and especially our youths,
from having an afternoon of joy and music. We’re lucky they’re not a
majority; I know for a fact there are many decent people in the City of
Miami who love their Homeland and therefore support any gesture of
solidarity with their fellow countrymen. The others make a fuss because
they engage in those evil activities from high political spheres and
media circles.
Juanes comes to give a concert from Cuba precisely on World Peace
Day. What message do you think he’ll be sending to the world through his
performance?
That Peace must be given a concert every day, and better yet, two
concerts.
Original:
http://www.lajiribilla.co.cu/2009/n432_08/432_18.html
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