Eliane Correa and Yadira Ferrer are two powerhouses of Cuban music best known in the UK fortheir work together at the front of 12-piece Timba fusion orchestra La Evolución. For this year's edition of the festival, they have joined forces to create a definitive songbook of the music dubbed “música alternativa” in Havana over the last two decades, a mix of timba, jazz, funk, pop and traditional Cuban music. While the genre is alive and well in places like Madrid, Barcelona and Miami, this is a unique opportunity to hear this repertoire in the UK performed by a 7-piece of some of the UK's top Cuban musicians for who música alternativa has been a natural part of the last 20 years. The repertoire will include songs by the likes of Interactivo, Kelvis Ochoa, Habanabierta and Descemer Bueno as well as some original compositions by Yadira and Eliane interspersed in the mix.

Música Alternativa cubana is a genre that flourished around the turn of the millennium, as musicians from Nueva Trova (singer-songwriter genre with strong links to the literary and intellectual scene) and musicians from genres considered “alternative” in Cuba such as rock, jazz and pop began composing on the basis of Cuban musical features as a common ground. A genre without a name was born, eventually being dubbed “música alternativa” for its melting pot, all-ideas-welcome identity, becoming a movement over the 2000s to 2010s. Most of these musicians have emigrated from Cuba, but their music continues to be loved and supported by Cubans both on the island and around the world.

Yadira Ferrer is a Cuban Barcelona-based soprano, jazz and Cuban music vocalist and composer who has shared the stage with many of the música alternativa artists that this event pays homage to; Eliane, the festival curator, is a London-based Latinx pianist and composer whose projects Wara, En El Aire and La Evolución, as well as touring with Hans Zimmer and collaborating with an array of Cuban artists internationally, have earned her the status of one of the most established figures of Latin music in the UK.

This repertoire have only been performed at the London Latin Jazz Fest.

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