Guantanamo.- “De regreso a la aldea” (Back to the Village), the latest album by Guantánamo pianist and composer Ernesto Oliva Figueredo, recorded with the prestigious Camerata Romeu Female Chamber Orchestra, won three awards at the Cubadisco 2026 International Music Fair.
The awards were presented during a ceremony at the National Theater of Cuba in the categories of Chamber Music, Musicological Notes, and Feature-Length Concert Film.
The musicological notes for this DVD release, titled “De regreso a la aldea,” written by Carmen Souto, won the award in this category. Meanwhile, in the audiovisual category, which evaluates works combining music and image, the feature-length concert film for this production, directed by Mayra María García, took home the prize.
The Cubadisco 2026 award in the Chamber Music category, given to the album “De regreso a la aldea” (Back to the Village), recognized the merit of this release licensed by the Bis Music label. The album brings together the masterful performances of the Camerata Romeu and the distinctive sounds of Guantánamo’s native region. The timbre expansion favored the re-reading of traditional genres -changüí, nengón, kiribá-, articulated with contemporary compositional procedures and with a string writing that directly refers to concert music.
Similarly, within the context of Cubadisco 2026, the National Museum of Music presented a special award to the recording “De regreso a la aldea” for bringing the essence of Guantánamo’s most deeply rooted musical genres into the sound and expressive universe of classical music with originality, sensitivity, and mastery.
This recording by Guantánamo-born instrumentalist, teacher, and cultural manager Ernesto Oliva Figueredo, along with the Camerata Romeu, under the direction of Zenaida Castro Romeu, is the result of the “Ritmo de inclusión” (Rhythm of Inclusion) Creation Grant, awarded by the Fondo de Arte Joven (Young Art Fund). The album includes ten tracks that fuse classical and popular styles, with general production by Mariana Peraza and sound engineering by Daniel Legón.
Ernesto Oliva Figueredo is a virtuoso pianist from Guantánamo who graduated in 2015 from the University of the Arts (ISA) with a degree in composition. He has been also awarded with the UNEAC Award and the “Conmutaciones” (Switching) Musical Creation Grant from the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS), as well as his participation in the recording “Lo nuestro” (Our Own) by his counterpart and bassist Yelsy Heredia, a record nominated for a Latin Grammy (2019).
