Baroque September, a concert season that takes center stage every September, was created by the Ars Longa Early Music Ensemble in 2003 and sponsored by the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana.

The objective of the festival is simply to showcase a unique program, comprised of works from the Baroque period, in each edition. This Cuban musical event takes place at the Church of Paula.

In 2010, the 8th September Baroque Festival was inaugurated by the Cantiga Armónica group, which presented a program of 17th-century Italian and 18th-century German and English works by composers Jean Bauptiste Lully, Georg Friedrich Händel, Tarquinio Merula, Tomasso Cechino, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Henry Purcell. This year’s performance featured performances by several Cuban early music ensembles, including Ars Longa, Cantiga Armónica, Ars Nova, and Exsulten.

The 9th edition of the September Baroque concert season opened with a concert of works by German composers, featuring the Ars Longa ensemble, this season’s host. Also performing were prestigious Cuban and international artists, such as Sonatas Habaneras, Música Eterna, the Havana Polyphonic Choir, the Unión Saxophone Quartet, the Ventus Habana Quintet, organists Colin Daniel Lynch and Vicent Carr, and the Trio de Cañas Móviles, among others.

At the closing ceremony, a selection from the opera La morado de la rosa (The Purple Rose) by composer Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco, based on a libretto by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, was performed on stage; the first opera composed and performed in the Americas.

13.6.8 Scratching Nostalgia Festival

The Scratching Nostalgia Festival has been held annually since 2006, in February, around Valentine’s Day, for three days in the province of Holguín. The festival’s organizer is Jorge Luis Sánchez Grass. The festival’s logo is the Lennon oil painting, a work by Holguín-based artist Cosme Proenza.

Various groups and soloists who cultivate classical romantic music from the 1960s and 1970s participate in the event, contributing to its dissemination. The Golden Heart of Nostalgia is the award given by Scratching Nostalgia.

In 2007, the second edition of the Scratching Nostalgia Festival was held, bringing together numerous groups and soloists from all over Cuba, including Retorno, Los Beltas, Cuarteto Ámbar, Los Moddys, Recuerdo.com, and Los Kent. Its venues were the main squares and cultural centers of the city of Holguín. In addition to concerts, video screenings were also held.

The fourth session, corresponding to 2009, was dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Radio Progreso and the program Nocturno, faithful broadcasters and defenders of the music of that prodigious decade, deserving of the Golden Heart of Nostalgia. A theoretical event entitled “The Sixties in Holguín” was held at the Siboney Club, led by Zenovio Hernández, Boris Tejeda, Ángela Peña, María Victoria Santana, and María de los Ángeles Rodríguez.

The festival opened publicly with the performance “Let’s Love Each Other,” starring Carlos Ruíz de la Tejera, Vania Borges, and Rafael Espín, who also featured singer Aurora Delgado. This year’s festival showcased a variety of artistic expressions, including the solo exhibition by Leticia Leyva and Javier Díaz, “In Love,” and Joaquín Osorio and Zenovio Hernández, presenting the book “Hispanic-American Love Poems,” anthologized by Mario Benedetti.

The group Los Ángeles del ayer; the duos Luz Verde and Mezcla perfecta; the group Tierra firme; Electrozona, Orbita 1; Corazón del Caribe; Ébano; the Saxophone Quartet; Manolito Helguera and his new image; the group SOS; Raúl Prieto and his group; the Orquesta Aragón; and the singers of the song Kadir Soria, Yamila Rodríguez, Rodolfo Ricardo (Fofi), and Ariel Alberto, among others, were in charge of setting the mood for each stage.

The 6th edition of this event was held in February 2011, beginning with the live broadcast of the national radio station Radio Progreso’s 45th anniversary program, from Calixto García Park.

One of the special guests was Manzanillo-born bolero singer Manolo del Valle, who received the Golden Heart of Nostalgia. This year, the festival was held in parks in the city center and other spaces throughout the province. One of its activities was a space dedicated to bolero. For the first time, it had sub-venues in the municipalities of Mayarí, Cueto, Gibara, Calixto García, Rafael Freyre, Sagua de Tánamo, and Antilla.

Among the artists and groups that participated we can mention the group Los Moddys, from Cienfuegos, the Banda América, Aurora Delgado, María Fermina Durán, William Cordero, Rodolfo Antonio, Manolo Fonseca, the Kubaneando project, Ernesto Infante, Kadir Soria, the group Damas, the A lo cubano project and the Retorno group.

The Scratching Nostalgia Festival gives the music of the so-called prodigious decade, classical romantic music, a place within the Cuban music scene.