Guitar
Monday
February 19, 2018
7:30 pm
WPAC Concert Hall
Wednesday
February 21, 2018
7:30 pm
WPAC Concert Hall
2018 MIGF Festival Pass
is available to attend all festival events at a single reduced price:
The Cuba Guitar Duo is comprised of guitarists Zuleida Suárez and Alberto Puerto, both graduates of Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. The duo has performed internationally in various festivals and prestigious concert halls around the world.
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1982, Zuleida Suárez started to play the guitar at the age of 10 at Alejandro Garcia Caturla Music Conservatory and continued her studies at the National School of Music. Suárez holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Music with a Major in Guitar Performance from the Superior Art Institute of Havana. She is a member of National Center for Concert Music (CNMC), the Cuban Union of Writers and Artist (UNEAC), and the SaízBrother´s Associations (AHS). She is co-founder and director of the guitar duet Con-Trastes. She is an assistant director of the Guitar Orchestra Sonantas Habaneras conducted by Cuban guitarist Jesus Ortega. Suárez is also a professor at the Art´s University of Havana, Cuba.
In 2014 she performed at the Miami Performance International Festival, in Miami Beach, Florida, and offered in the same year and in 2017 a serie of concerts with Con-Trastes in the South of France as part of the promotion of their first album. She has organized and conducted many concerts of chamber music and has performed at important national and international festivals like Havana Contemporary Music Festival, Havana Chamber Music Festival, American Winds Festival, Havana International Guitar Festival, Identity Festival, Leo Brouwer Chamber Music Festival and Miami Performance International Festival among others.
Suárez has performed in the most prestigious concert halls along the country like the“Basílica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asís”, “Teatro Nacional de Cuba”, “Iglesia de Paula”, “Teatro Amadeo Roldán” and“Gran Teatro de La Habana”.Suárez has a special interest in performing Cuban and Latin-American music for guitar. In 2012 she recorded “Jesus Ortega and Cuban Guitar” and “Cuban Landscape with Sonantas”, a double album with Sonantas Habaneras Guitar Orquestra under the Colibri music label. In 2014, Duo Con-Trastes recorded their first and highly acclaimed album “Contrastes”, an independent production with the collaboration of the Saiz Brother´s Association and the Noruega Embassy in Cuba. She has also recorded with Cuban singer Liuba Maria Hevia under Bis Music label.
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1986, Alberto Puerto began his studies in classical guitar on 1995 to 2010 when he graduated with honors as “Bachelor of Music with Classical Guitar Expertise” at the University of the Arts in Cuba (ISA), his teachers were the very well-known guitar teachers Jesus Ortega and Eduardo Martin. For 7 years he was part of the guitars orchestra “Sonantas Habaneras”, which is directed by maestro Jesus Ortega. In the last 4 years of this period Alberto was developed as concertmaster of this orchestra. He was the founder of the guitars duo “Con Paz” with which he won a place to be part of the “Cuban National Concert Music Center” catalog. He has participated in national and international guitar competitions in different countries like USA, Peru, Bolivia and Cuba, obtaining prizes in these last two countries.
Recently, between April and May of 2016 he performed a concert and taught a workshop at the University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany and at the Federal University of Roraima, Brazil, under the name of, “Influence of Traditional Cuban Music on Classical Guitar”. He was a teacher and director of Guitar Department for 5 years at the Universidad Evangélica Boliviana (UEB) in the Music Department, teaching Harmony, Musical Appreciation and Solfeo. Also he worked at the Music Academy Music House in where he founded a children guitars orchestra. In the past he has received master classes from teachers like: Jesús Ortega (Cuba), Eduardo Martin (Cuba), Joaquín Clerch (Cuba), Rosa Matos (Cuba), Elizabeth Schwimmer (Bolivia) and Carlos Bonell (England). During his career he performed as a soloist, duet and with guitars orchestra in the most important halls throughout Cuba.
In Bolivia, he has performed solo and chamber music concerts in different music festivals such as: International Festival of Renaissance and American Baroque Music, “Misiones de Chiquitos” Santa Cruz (the world’s largest baroque festival), “Bach-Fest” Cochabamba, International Festival “Guitars in the White City” Sucre, International Festival “Eduardo Laredo” Cochabamba, Contemporary Music Festival, Cochabamba, New Music Festival, Santa Cruz among others. He has been a member of several chamber music projects with musicians and artists of other manifestations, such as: Jodi Penner, soprano lyricist (USA), Jiri Sommer, violinist (Czech Republic), Ana Lucia Dalence, percussionist, (Bolivia), Andrea Scotta, dancer (Bolivia) among others. Besides that, Alberto has a broad repertoire as a soloist.
