Havana, Cuba – “For the first time ever, the International Fair ‘Cubadisco 2009’ will grant the Best Composer Award, aimed at encouraging and acknowledging concert creations,” announced the president of the organizing committee Ciro Benemelis.
More than 200 works will be in competition, representing the most diverse musical genres and productions. The jury will also grant a Special International Children’s Music Award.
Benemelis stressed that for the third consecutive time, the international music contest will grant the Best Foreign Album Award and added that nominees include Puerto Rican Danny Rivera and the Gran Combo de Puerto Rico orchestra.
He explained that nine other albums stand out from the more the 30 nominees in this category, compared to four works competing in this category last year and only two in 2007.
“In 2006, the Cubadisco jury granted the Special Best Music Theme of the Year Award to Cuban Ricardo Leyva and his group Sur Caribe for ‘Añoranza por la conga’.
“In 2004, the prize to the Best Album Producer was created, granted on that occasion to Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez,” said Benemelis and pointed to the top quality proposals at this year’s event.
“In 2002,” said the president of the organizing committee, “the video clip category was also included that given the new technological advances has experienced a tremendous growth and popularity, which reflects also in the annual international music contest.”
The jury will choose the best works among some 60 audiovisual projects (18 CD-DVD, one multimedia, 15 documentaries and 25 video clips). Also for the first time ever, the jury will grant the Best Children’s Video Clip Award, to be chosen from among 19 works produced by the film studios of Cuba’s Film Institute (ICAIC).
Cubadisco 2009 will be held May 16-24 and the awards ceremony to recognize and celebrate the best musical productions of 2008 is set for May 16 at Havana’s Karl Marx theatre.
The annual Cubadisco fair, regarded as the most important event of its kind in Cuba, is this year dedicated to children and has Puerto Rico as the guest of honor.
Translation: Lena B. Valverde (Cubarte)
Source: PL/Cubarte
Author: Cubarte
