Cuban City to Unveil First Sculpture of Singer Benny Moré

(Prensa Latina) Cienfuegos, Cuba – A sculpture of Benny
Moré, one of the Cuban popular music icons, will be unveiled here
Saturday, it was announced Monday. Provincial government official José
Ramón Garcia explained the sculpture, made by artist José Villa, will
be placed in the most central intersection of the city, 250 kilometers
southeast Havana.

Anchored and without pedestal, the 1.83-meter bronze statue shows
the figure of Benny (1919-1963) walking as one more passer-by in
Cienfuegos´ Paseo del Prado, the longest promenade in Cuba. It will
also show his inseparable attributes: wide-brimmed hat and the
baton-like walking stick he used to lead the musicians of his famous
Banda Gigante (Giant Band).

Melted at the workshops of Havana´s Higher Institute of Art, the sculpture
will be donated by its author to the harbor city also know as La Perla del
Sur (The Southern Pearl).
In one of his most famous songs, Moré, born in Santa Isabel de las Lajas, a
municipality of this province, stated that Cienfuegos was the city he liked
the most.

Every two years, Moré is paid tribute in this, his home town, by colleagues
and dancers with an International Festival of Popular Music named after him.
The fame of the Havana sculptor Villa grew in the last years due to
sculptures he made of former Beatles star John Lennon, US novelist Ernest
Hemingway and the popular street celebrity known as The Knight of Paris, all
of them in the Cuban capital.

The pieces are characterized by being at the reach of the people, conveying
a sense of closeness.