• Submitted by: manso
• Arts and Culture
• 04 / 18 / 2011

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By: Marta Sánchez. El canto de mis abuelos (My Grandparent’s Song), the title of the most recent album by Frank Fernandez, allows the pianist, among the best in the world, to show himself just as he is.

“For the first time I give free rein to everything motivating me,” maintains Fernandez, a composer of every type of theme, who with the present compilation renders tribute to African and Spanish ancestors in Cuba

In his presentation of the work, tres player Francisco (Pancho) Amat, highlighted the empathy existing between the pianist and Los muñequitos de Matanzas group in the piece Guaguan-piano, in which the master’s instrument fluidly interacts with the rumba ensemble.

This relationship turns this work in an “unrepeatable phenomenon” where impromptu freedom embraces the most rigorous academicism. The large culture of the musician parades fully, comfortably, happily.

“Perhaps tomorrow Frank and Los Muñequitos may meet to play it again and, although I am sure they will do something as good as this, the sound will never be the same because of the important strength of the impromptu in the final result,” says this great tres player who also took part in the album.

Other artists contributing to the work are Yoel Matos, Guillermo del Toro, Pancho Terry, Andrés Gonzalo and Yunieski (Paíto) Aguero, Dreiser Durruty, Enrique Pla, Raydel Luis, Mabel Serrano, Rainel Jouvert, Fernando Munoz and Elpidio Chapottin, among others.

The CD includes already known pieces like the impressive Zapateo por derecho and Vals joropo. It is sold with a DVD containing the audiovisuals in Guaguan-piano and Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for piano and orchestra, accompanied by the National Symphonic Orchestra conducted by Enrique Perez Mesa.

During the presentation of El canto de mis abuelos, Frank Fernandez, who besides composing and playing sings in the Guaguan-piano chorus, praised the elegance of the impromptus by Los muñequitos de Matanzas, in which none of them runs over the other and style and a sense of ensemble prevail.

With his characteristic modesty, the Maestro acknowledged that he had learned from the orchestra and underlined the possibility of improvisation and experience accumulated in his more than six decades of artistic life favored spontaneity during the composition and recording of the album.

“It is a CD in which I have felt more than fulfilled and where I have been free and feeling free in art is very difficult, because knowledge and prestige are absolutely enslaving”, he maintained.

Dolores, the first theme in the CD, is his Andalusian grandmother’s name whom he never met. Fernandez said he intends to render a tribute to the grandparents of all Cubans and that his island has two roots specially marking it: the Spanish and the African.

Praising his capacity to smelt cultures, more than one artist has said that Frank Fernandez is white outside but black inside. Those who listen to El canto de mis abuelos will have the chance of corroborating it.

Source: Cubarte