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Andrés
Alén 1950
 Havana,
Cuba. October 7, 1950. Pianist, composer, pedagogue. He is one of
the most talented pianist of the second half of the XX century in
Cuba. From an early age he took piano lessons from his father Osvaldo
Alén, who was at that time a very well known pianist in the
piano- bar world in Havana. From his father, he received not only
the first academic education, but also the influence from the convulse
and powerful popular music of those times. It was the period of the
golden age for the Cuban music and it was present in the most varied
scenarios in the world. As a result of this situation the Alén
family moved to New York city where Andrés makes contact with
the Latin Music world of this city. In 1961 the family definitely
returns to Cuba and a year later he enters the National Arts School
where he takes piano lessons and in 1970 finishes his studies and
starts working as a concert pianist and piano professor. During this
time he also composes his first works and makes his first incursion
as composer and interpreter of popular music.
After a post graduate course with the Russian professor and pianist
Vitali P.I. Dotsenko, Alén gets an scholarship to study at
the P. I. Tchaikowsky conservatoire in Moscow. During 3 years he received
classes from the professor Lev Nicolaevich Vlásenko and nourished
from all this developed and powerful Russian School could offer him.
He returns to Cuba in 1976 with solid and high piano techniques and
a profound music culture, which had transformed his aesthetic assessments.
This is when his tour and concert times begin. He plays with the National
Symphony Orchestra, Matanzas’ and Santiago de Cuba’s Symphony
orchestras, he gives several concerts in the former Soviet Union and
Czechoslovakia. After that he would offer concerts and take master
classes in India, Germany and Poland. During the 80’s he gives
piano lessons in the most important schools and conservatoires in
Havana and there’s also an increase in his work as composer.
In 1989 he joins the group of the famous Cuban trumpet player Arturo
Sandoval where he plays the keyboards and makes arrangements and musical
compositions. In 1991 he gets involved with the group Perspectiva
and stays with it until 1995. With both groups he carries out an intense
international activity and develops his skills as jazz player and
arranger.
The transcendental aspect of his life as educator is his way of transmitting
his students a very Cuban way to play the piano. Alén has been
able to turn Cuban music not only in a necessary vehicle to learn
“the Cuban” but also to better learn “the music”.
This gives a universal range to his pedagogue projection.
The 80’s are the flourishing decade for Alén as a composer
and during the 90’s Alén reaffirms many of the characteristics
that conform his nowadays-personal style. At this time he makes profound
elaboration inside what has become his main creation technique: the
fusion between the most refined classical techniques of the European
music and the most authentic ways to create and interpret used by
the Cuban popular musician of the XX century. In general, his style
identifies itself with the contemporary tendencies and is characterized
by the use of conventional formal structures.
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See discography in www.discuba.com
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