Guantanamo.- This Friday, November 28, El Changüinazo returns to Carrera Larga, a town in the municipality of El Salvador. In a traditional atmosphere, music, dance, and culture will be presented for twelve uninterrupted hours as a tribute to changüí, a musical genre that belongs to the Cuba’s intangible cultural heritage.
The festival, eagerly awaited by lovers of this rich Guantánamo cultural expression, will begin at nine in the morning at the Carrera Larga Pastoral Center, located more than 15 kilometers from the capital city. Those interested can reach the center by taking buses that will depart every hour from the Casa de la Trova “Benito Odio” in Guantánamo City.
El Changüinazo, a name coined by the distinguished promoter Samuel Jackson Mena, is being held for the second time in Guantánamo and has become an authentic space that shows the deep cultural roots of this region.
At the same time, the gathering represents a refuge for genuine exponents of the genre and the changüí music clubs, who prefer this kind of jam session in a rural area, as in its beginnings when farmers shared baptisms, Christmas Eve dinners, New Year’s Eve celebrations, and other long days of festivities with their families.
With the support of organizations such as the Rafael Cepeda Brenes Foundation of Puerto Rico and the Changüí Mío project, led by Jafet Murgia, a musician and Claretian missionary (born in Puerto Rico), El Changüinazo is aimed at the preservation not only of the music but also a way of life, a sense of belonging that resonates in every chord, every dance step, and smile of the changüí family.
