• Submitted by: admin
• Culture and Traditions
• Politics and Government
• 06 / 02 / 2010

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 Havana - Singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez, regarded by many left-wingers around the world as the musical voice of Fidel Castro's Cuba, is set to perform in the United States.

The tour, set to feature two concerts in New York's prestigious Carnegie Hall and five other performances across the United States in June, is Rodriguez's first trip to the US in 30 years. The demand was so great that a second concert was added for Carnegie Hall at the last minute.

For many years, US tours for artists who reside in Cuba were reduced to near zero, as were Cuban tours for US artists.

Since US President Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, however, there has been a slow thaw in cultural exchange between the United States and Cuba.

Rodriguez obtained in early May his US visa, which he had been denied several times before, the last time in May 2009.

Rodriguez is the leader of the Nueva Trova movement, which is politically committed to the Cuban Revolution led by the Castro brothers. He is to perform in New York's Carnegie Hall on June 4 and June 10, in Oakland, California, on June 12, in Los Angeles on June 17, in Washington on June 19, in Chicago on June 21 and in Orlando, Florida, on June 23.

Rodriguez, 63, is looking forward to returning to the United States.

"I hope I have time to return to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, which holds the Spirit of St Louis, the plane in which (Charles) Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic. It was incredibly small, and with a single engine. One cannot imagine how such a precarious machine can fly over such vastness," Rodriguez recalled in his blog.

"Some instruments of human feats look like toys. Might they be just that?" he wondered.

Rodriguez noted that the first Carnegie Hall concert was sold out many days in advance, so a second was added.

The online edition of Spanish newspaper El Mundo said Rodriguez opted out of performing in Miami so as to avoid controversy with anti-Castro Cuban exiles whose stronghold is in the Florida metropolis. His tour organiser said Miami was purposely circumvented.

"There are many Cubans and Latin Americans in Florida who want to see Silvio in concert. I always wanted to do it in Miami, but it would be very controversial and we ave to avoid any kind of situation that people can interpret as provocation," tour organizer Hugo Cancio told elmundo.es.

Before embarking on his tour, the singer slammed Arizona's controversial new immigration law in Havana.

"As any sensitive person in this world, I am against the Arizona law and against any law that discriminates against people - and treats them as if they were beasts - who go to the United States with the wish to work," he told Cuban media before heading to Puerto Rico.

On Sunday, Rodriguez played in San Juan, en route to the United States.

While Obama has loosened rules on cultural travel, he continues to support the economic embargo against Cuba

Copyright DPA

By :  Vicente Poveda

Source: www.earthtimes.org/