Cuban Music from A-Z

Helio Orovio

Helio Orovio is a renowned historian, critic, musician and musicologist. Born in Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba in 1938, he is an accomplished author and the leading authority on Cuban music. His earlier works include Bolero de Oro (1991), Musica por el Caribe (1991), El Bolero Latino (1996) and a guide on the life of Cuba's greatest singer, Beny More, entitled Que Bueno Canta Usted. His ethnomusicological talents have been utilised in the role of chief advisor on the famous film Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate).

The idea for the Cuban Dictionary of Music from A-Z was conceived by Helio at the Institute of Folklore and Ethnology at the Academy of Sciences in Cuba. In all, over 27 years of research and hard work by Helio and his team of experts have been carried out to piece this momentous piece of work together. It must be pointed out that the facts emerged from many different sources such as books, newspaper articles, TV and radio programmes, interviews, library archives, anecdotes from musicians, researchers, students, catalogues and all kinds of texts involving data about Cuban music including articles dating back to the nineteenth century.

Helio Orovio's acclaimed dictionary of Cuban music was first published in Cuba in Spanish in June 1981 and continues to be to this day the only one of it's kind. With over 5000 entries and more than 300 illustrations and photographs, the Dictionary provides the most extensive database of authors, artists, bands, genres, musical instruments, dances, institutions – all kinds of people and subjects which provide the form, texture, history and future of Cuban music. Available only in Cuba until now, thus remaining mostly in obscurity since it first appeared, it has been the essential treasure trove for researchers, students and all those interested in Cuban music.

In early 2000, Mo Fini suggested that Helio Orovio and he could work together and make an up-to-date version in English. Now, after three years of intense research and translation, and with the contribution of many music lovers, the English version is being fully released by Duke University Press in the USA and for the rest of the world by Tumi Music.

Tumi is proud to present the revised edition of the world's only dictionary of Cuban Music for everyone to treasure.

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