• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 10 / 25 / 2010

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24 de Octubre 2010. Cuban pianist Harold López-Nussa CD Canciones, recorded in 2008, is one of the beautiful records included in The jazz young spirit collection by Gloria Ochoa , one of the highlights of the last ten years of the Cuban recording industry on the Producciones Colibrí label. When López-Nussa first began to perform, many thought that he would devote himself only to classical music, given his great success, winning several national and international competitions. However, deep down inside his calling led him to the world of jazz and popular music.

Pianist Harold Lopez Nussa was born in a family of musicians: his mother was a piano teacher, his father and brother, both called Ruy, are renowned percussionists in the genre, and his uncle, Ernán, is one of Cuba´s finest pianists. López-Nussa´s family has greatly influenced the pianist he is today. His piano work also reveals the development of another Cuban piano giant in the great tradition of Bebo and Chucho Valdes, Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Roberto Fonseca.

López-Nussa first studied classical music for about thirteen years. He went to the Conservatorio Manuel Saumell where he practiced and was tutored by professor Teresita Junco "she has been a special guide and teacher who knows what one needs, always with an appropriate idea of each step to take, of each obstacle to overcome". But, he only recently became interested in jazz and Cuban music because "there is no school that teaches that kind of music". López-Nussa still dearly loves classical music and plays once a year with the Philharmonic orchestra. He is also developing another passion "I´m spending more and more time composing, playing Latin Jazz, Cuban Jazz because I like it even more."

Throughout his student life, López-Nussa has won national competitions such as the Amadeo Roldán Grand Prize when he was only 10 years old; he won the first prize in the Ibero-American Piano Competition and was a finalist in the Città di Senigalia in Italy. He also performed the Ravel´s Concerto in G Major with the Matanzas Symphony Orchestra conducted by the maestro Enrique Pérez Mesa, and was selected to accompany pianist Ulises Hernández in the 2003 premiere in Cuba of the integral works of Heitor Villa-Lobos.

In 2005, at the 39th Montreux Jazz Piano Competition in Switzerland, López-Nussa, aged 22, won the first prize. "I was delighted as Montreux is one of the most important jazz events in the world and it was a true pleasure to be there, in the same place as the top jazz musicians..." López-Nussa offered the jury and the public of Montreux, a masterly interpretation of Memories of Tomorrow, by Keith Jarrett; Footprints, by W. Shorter; and "E´cha", his own work. He won the first place in the competition demonstrating the breadth of his musical inspiration as well as his mastery of modern jazz, indigenous Cuban rumba and just about anything in between.

Then came his award at the Cubadisco festival for his first solo album, Canciones, produced by his uncle Ernán López-Nussa.

The album includes interpretations of songs by several important composers such as Santiago Feliú, Carlos Varela, Fito Páez, Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. The sole piece composed by Harold López-Nussa on his first album was Bailando suiza.

The album is interesting in its approach of mixing jazz with a sort of classical orchestration heavily laden with string quartets. The album´s recording, mix and mastering by Maykel Bárzagas is top notch. The album design is by Nelson Ponce with photos by Iván Soca and liner notes by Leonardo Acosta.

The line-up of guest musicians is also impressive, led by Harold´s father, drummer Ruy López-Nussa, and his uncle Ernán, on the song Los Muñecos, by Ignacio Cervantes. Other highlights are Para Bárbara, 11 y 6 and Causas y azares.

By: Joaquin Borges Triana and Source: www.jrebelde.cubaweb.cu |

Source: www.cubarte-english.cult.cu/paginas/actualidad/noticia.php?id=16449