Songs

Cuba, in fact, has a very strong presence on tonight’s program. We are still discovering the musical richness of this island culture, which for generations has been largely invisible to Americans by virtue of its political system. Gisela Hernández (1912-71) lived through much of that troubled history. Following studies in her hometown and in Havana, she traveled on scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore, in 1944. Back in Cuba a few years later, Hernández became director of the Havana Choral Society and began teaching at the local conservatory. She developed ties with the Castro government as a means to securing artistic survival; it was only with official sanction that she could support herself by composing and teaching. And though she was an important educator in Cuba, we remember her this evening through songs. Hernández wrote 18 evocative songs for piano and voice using texts by the most distinctive Latin American poets, including García Lorca, Mirta Aguirre, Rabindranath Tagore, and Juan Ramón Jiménez.

(c) Jason Stell