The Catalan singer Silvia Pérez Cruz arrives this Sunday in Havana to offer a free concert amid the Cuban energy crisis, in a gesture she describes as "an act of love" towards the island and its people.
The recital will take place in the Renaissance church of San Francisco el Nuevo, in Old Havana, a space deliberately chosen for its acoustics and, above all, because it does not depend on the national electrical grid, which this Sunday affects up to 70% of the island with outages that can exceed 20 hours.
"I believe this is the most important concert of the entire tour," said the artist in an interview with EFE ahead of the event.
Pérez Cruz will be accompanied by her usual trio: Bori Alberto on double bass, Marta Roma on cello, and Carlos Monfort on violin. The program will include songs from her latest album, Oral_Abisal, iconic pieces from her discography, and some surprises.
The Havana stop is part of a Latin American tour that started in Mexico City and will continue to the Dominican Republic, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. However, the artist places it in a category of its own: "When you’re on an island, in a moment like this, and people come from outside, there’s something of an act of love; it’s like a hug."
The concert comes just two days after Pérez Cruz performed before 17,000 people in Los Angeles, at the farewell event for Gustavo Dudamel as the musical and artistic director of that city's Philharmonic.
The singer's connection to Cuba is not incidental. Her father, Cástor Pérez, was a researcher, composer of habaneras, and an expert in Cuban music, and he taught her "La tarde" by the traditional trova composer Sindo Garay when she was four years old. Silvia recorded this piece in 2010 as a tribute to her father, who passed away that same year, after they had traveled together across the island and performed a concert in a theater.
"I have an intimate relationship with this island; I want to care for it in the way I know, which is through singing," stated the artist, winner of the National Prize for Current Music in 2022 and a two-time winner of the Goya Award for Best Original Song.
The concert announcement was made in July on social media with the message “Dear Cuba, Loved Cuba,” accompanied by a video in which he performs the very song by Sindo.
The choice of a church as a setting directly responds to the electricity crisis that Cuba is experiencing, with a generation capacity of only 1,032 MW compared to a much higher demand this Sunday. The country has experienced seven total collapses of the National Electric System so far this year, two of which were recorded at the beginning of August.
"I understand why he fell in love with this land, and I have my own stories and emotions. Cuba is truly inexplicable; you always leave feeling stirred. The more I come, the less I understand it, and I think that's what it's all about," concluded Pérez Cruz.
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