Sergio Vitier

His tight connection with avant-garde movements from all points of view and word acceptations, has taken him far beyond his exceptional features as musician.

This interview was born in the middle of working sessions and essays of Chamber Soloists Orchestra in Havana and guest musicians at the Amadeo Rodán Auditorium-Theater, enjoying the soundtrack of Rigoberto López`s film ''Roble de olor''. Ready to use every little pause, this interview came out to review the homage the International Music Fair Cubadisco 2003 in its seventh edition decided to offer to this eternal innovator, who declares himself as a simply popular musician.

Showing none affective scarcity, Sergio Vitier García-Marruz, Havana, 1948, shortly answers he never have considered his parents, Cintio and Fina as the fine intellectuals although the absolute knowledge he possesses of their works. ''Mum and Dad raised us in the familiar environment we currently have''.

Los Armónicos and Felipe Dulzaides, 1964-66. What did they offered to your career?

''Felipe Dulzaides was a musicians trainer, as Leo Brouwer defined him, being also an excellent instrumentits. He had a very working professional system. Lacking written music on papers we managed to ''set'' more than one hundred pieces. It was a very important period for my career, to train the harmony concept, to know different jazzist genres, instrumental, Cuban music in general. Great luminaries entered Los Armónicos: Changuito, Rembert Egües, Javier Zalba, among others.

Tropicalismo also and Tom Jobím with all those Brazilian music came to us from Dulzaides` hands from the cabaret. I think is worthy to study the role of him at Cuban music.
But there were not only this training, he quickly stated, stopping the next question. I studied at Amadeo Roldán Conservatoire, afterwards at Superior Institute of Art with Issac Nicola, Leo Brouwer, Federico Smith, Félix Guerrero, José Ardévol. I had great teachers. I was also part of Cuban Orchestra of Modern Music.

Instrumentalist and Composer
''I`m mainly an orchestral composer rather than for guitar although I keep on playing guitar, something rare indeed. After a hurt in the hand..
Perhaps, it may sounds incredible, but this obliged me to lay on the orchestra and look for other solutions I`ve never thought before, not only in guitar.

The influence came out from Leo, also from great guitarists like Guyún, Froilán, Carlos Emilio Morales with whom I worked along many years, Ñico Rojas -jazzists as Miles Davies together with the vanguard, Penderewsky. Mi symphonic work, Desprendimientos has a lot to do with what I'm explaining.
All of them have influenced in a searching of a language from the study of contemporary techniques and the Cuban style. Caturla joins this list as a paradigmatic composer very hard nad creative, who really marked me because he wanted to create a sort of third world orchestra for the first time, different from the traditional traditionalists.

Sergio Vitier and the famous Martha Valdés rendered tribute to feeling and its luminaries César Portillo de la Luz, José Antonio Mendez and Pablo Miranda through their phonogram Nuestra Canción at CUBADISCO 2001.
Another outstanding moment in his career was his relation with this aesthetic movement named Feeling. Many fine voices citing Omara Portuondo, Elena Burke, Doris de la Torre, Moraima Secada felt the unique company of Sergio`s guitar.

1969. Grupo de Experimentación Sonora del ICAIC. Its significance.

''Leo, more than the most relevant composer from the second half of XX century, is a creative and integral teacher who gave us the academic formation of music history in an easy way.
The Grupo de Experimentación Sonora del ICAIC was a tremendous school, the place where not only the song was created but also the experimental and avant-garde music. It was an amazing experience.

The conceptual universe of this composer was opened towards diverse roads.

Along the 80s, he was in charge of Julio Antonio Mella cultural complex. The musician was split in a cultural promoter different ways. His vocation for the Cuban theme, always looking for essential forms led him to approach universality and entwine artistic and literary manifestations. Intellectuals and artists were convoked running from visual to performing arts. Sergio played a leading role in this period assuming the music for theater in Teatro Irrumpe`s Mariana under Roberto Blanco's direction.

Sergio holds a huge catalog: symphonic, chamber, electro-acoustic and scenic-incidental music. Titles as Yerma, Ad Limitum and Michelangelo are symbols of his art, but his themes for movies and TV are the most famous. Seventy-seven movies boast his music. How do you enter cinema world?

''Movies demands an expressive bundle undertaking all musical genres, in Cuba above all, composers must be able to approach any sort of genre, historical music, themes for dramas, contemporary or music from any specific epoch… Human feelings must be taken into consideration and certain talent is needed more than skills to successfully entwine image and sound.

It could be a silly statement but I discovered Cuban music is not only festive; its rhythmic also contains epic and dramatic elements. I started to transgress dogmas and used percussive elements in certain orchestral textures of popular music with another dramaturgy. In this way, I created a new style; today is a method. I remember the full-length movie Girón which finally showed the blood of dead people with a danzón''.

ORU is a myth in your career, is the conscious research of African and Spanish folkloric elements.

"Oru was born on April, 1968 with Master Rogelio Martínez Furé and Master Jesús Pérez, Odba Ilú, great tambor player, human library of Cuban folklore who is already dead. We work the Lucumi origin, the Spanish roots and also the imaginative music without any explicit reference to traditions world. Later on, other remarkable instrumentalists and interpreters, Cachaito, Merceditas Valdés, Gema Corredera joined it. Its recognition achieved international levels with presentations in Europe and Latin America. ORU is a chant of Cuban taste. A present I gave myself, fully enjoying it on my deepest part of my soul''.

Cuban and universal, this popular musician is polemic by nature; critics came out from him favoring the human improvement, the love and passion for Cuba. From his guitar, his compositions, in the rights and profound words when talking about his native land, Sergio is simply an artist in permanent and growing creative development.

Courtesy from Institute of Music, 2003.