Enrique Perez Mesa will receive the White 2023 Award.
The music section of the Matanzas affiliate of the UNEAC will present the White Award for Life’s Work to director of the National Symphony Orchestra Enrique Perez Mesa on November 9th.
Pérez Mesa, who graduated in violin from the National School of Arts and from the Higher Institute of Arts in Orchestral Conducting, began his career as conductor of the Matanzas Symphony Orchestra and has also worked as conductor of the orchestra of the National Ballet of Cuba.
His repertoire includes chamber, symphonic, symphonic-choral, opera and ballet music, as well as genres from baroque to contemporary. He has been guest conductor of several foreign orchestras and has collaborated with outstanding artists in Cuba and abroad. It is also worth mentioning his pedagogical work in Cuban and foreign institutions.
During the gala that will take place at the José White Concert Hall, starting at 3:00 p.m., Beatriz Márquez, winner of the National Music Award, will receive La bella cubana, an award given to women for their essential contributions to national music. Celina González, Omara Portuondo, Sara González, Argelia Fragoso, Marta Valdés and Anneris Cánovas, among other artists, have received this award in previous editions.
With an extensive and successful career, La Musícalísima is a solid exponent of romantic song, feeling and bolero. Her mezzo-soprano register has made it possible for her to descend to lower tones, as well as the unexpected, and no less appreciated, ascents to much higher tessituras, without losing her defining style, very appropriate for the song and the bolero; genres in which she has remained one of the main cultivators in Cuba.
This will also be an opportune moment to recognize pianist and composer Frank Fernandez for his systematic contribution to the development of Matanzas music.
In the 24th edition of the White Award, the group Nuestra America, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, emerged around 1970 in the heat of the new trova movement, will also be honored.
Considered one of the best instrumental vocal groups in the country, they dabble in folk music, dance music and song, with good adjustment of their voices and instruments and a unique sonority, defending their own compositions and also the best of the new Cuban and international song.
The White Award was created to recognize the work of cultural institutions and artistic education, cultural personalities, associations and foundations, music centers and companies and agencies that commercialize artistic talent in the promotion of this manifestation.
Previously, the White Award for Lifetime Achievement has been awarded to such cultural personalities of Matanzas as Mario Argenter, Idelfonso Acosta, Celina González, Francisco Zamora (Minini), Diosdado Ramos, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Zulueta, Bruno Villalonga and José Antonio Méndez Valencia.
This becomes the most important of the music awards in Matanzas, which enhances every year, based on the experience of the distinguished creators of the most universal of cultural manifestations in the province, the good art that is born in the Athens of Cuba.
Written by Jessica Mesa Duarte.
