Havana

El Templete is a monument in Havana, Cuba, that pays homage to the place where the foundation of the town of San Cristóbal de la Habana was... celebrated in 1519. The monument consists of bust of Christopher Columbus and three canvases painted by Jean Baptiste Vermay. It is Neoclassic building, typical example of colonial architecture. Close to the Templete, there is a column which replaces a silk-cotton tree, under which the first mass and the first Council of Havana were celebrated.
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Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez, better known as Alberto Korda or simply Korda was a Cuban photographer, remembered for his famous image... Guerrillero Heroico of Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. Korda, whose real name was Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez, was born on 14 September 1928 in Havana, Cuba. He got his first taste of photography when he took his father's Kodak 35mm and began taking pictures of his girlfriend. Korda was the son of a railway worker, and took many jobs before beginning as a photographer's assistant. Korda began his career as a photographer who shot pictures at banquets, baptisms and weddings. He would run back to his studio to develop the film, then return to the event and sell his photographs as a souvenir. The quality of Korda’s work as a beginner was very poor; after a few months the image became blurry and the paper yellowed. When he opened his first studio Korda had an opportunity to learn from his mistakes and to stop the yellowing process by using the right chemicals for the correct durations of time. In 1953 Korda opened his first studio with a photographer named Luis Pierce.
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Paquito D'Rivera is a Cuban alto saxophonist, clarinetist and soprano saxophonist. The winner of multiple Grammys and other awards, D'Rivera has... lived in the United States since the early 1980s. He has worked in a variety of contexts, but is perhaps best known for playing Latin jazz. Paquito was a child prodigy. He started learning music at the age of 5 with his father Tito Rivera, a well-known classical saxophonist and conductor in Cuba. D'Rivera grew up in Cuba, playing both saxophone and clarinet and performing with the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba at a young age. When he was seven, became the youngest artist ever to endorse a musical instrument, when he signed on with the music company Selmer. By 1980, D'Rivera was dissatisfied about the constraints placed on his music in Cuba for many years. In an interview with ReasonTV, D'Rivera notes that the Cuban communist government described jazz and rock and roll as "imperialist" music that was officially discouraged in the 1960s and '70s, and that a meeting with Che Guevara sparked his desire to leave Cuba.
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Rey Ruiz is a salsa singer from Cuba. Ruiz reached international fame across Latin America, Europe and among Hispanic music fans in the United... States. Rey Ruiz demonstrated an interest in becoming a salsa singer since he was a small child. Aside from an apparently normal childhood, Ruiz made his debut as a performer at a very young age; he was often showcased on Cuban television as a child, singing typical children's songs. Ruiz had his parents' full support, he was later on enrolled in Havana's Conservatorio de Música school. Eventually, Ruiz made his way to headlining a show at the Habana Libre Hotel. . Rey Ruiz performed in the well known "Cabaret Tropicana" music group. During a Cabaret Tropicana tour in the Dominican Republic, Ruiz defected, leaving the group to join some friends in the United States. Once established there, Ruiz began to gain fame as a solo salsa singer. It took Ruiz three years after he arrived in the United States for him to release his first CD.
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Arturo O'Farrill is a pianist, the son of Latin jazz musician and bandleader Chico O'Farrill. He formerly worked with Carla Bley and eventually took... over his father's band. Arturo went on to form the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, which played at Lincoln Center. Under his direction the group recorded the Grammy-nominated album Noche Involvidable in 2005. In 2007, O'Farrill left Lincoln Center to form his own non-profit, the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance. Under the new institution, O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra released their second album Song for Chico in 2008, which won a Grammy Award for "Best Latin Jazz Album" at the 2009 Grammy Awards. In 2011, O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra released their third album "40 Acres and a Burro," which was nominated for a Grammy Award for "Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album." He was also a professor of jazz at The University of Massachusetts Amherst and SUNY Purchase. He lives with his wife and two children in Brooklyn.
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Gonzalo Rubalcaba is a Grammy Award-winning Cuban jazz pianist and composer. Gonzalo has performed with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Ignacio... Berroa, Chick Corea, Al DiMeola, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Haden, Katia Labèque, Richard Galliano, Francisco Céspedes, Tony Martinez, Issac Delgado, Juan Luis Guerra, Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Eric Harland, Dennis Chambers, Brian Bromberg, Ron Carter, Yosvany Terry, Matt Brewer, Mike Rodriguez, Marcus Gilmore, Pat Martino, Giovanni Hidalgo, John Patitucci, Jack DeJohnette, Joao Bosco, Ivan Lins and many others. Gonzalo Julio Gonzalez Fonseca was born in Havana, Cuba, May 27, 1963, into a musical family rich in the traditions of the country’s artistic past. During his childhood, in addition to the standard fare of elementary schools, Gonzalo was absorbing his Cuban musical heritage through personal contacts within his family, notably his father, pianist Guillermo Rubalcaba, and leading musicians who were frequent houseguests: Frank Emilio, Pedro "Peruchin" Justiz, Felipe Dulzaides and others.
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Albita Rodríguez , known in her music career simply as Albita, is a Grammy-winning Cuban-American singer, producer and composer. Albita was born... in Havana, Cuba. Her parents were well-known Cuban folk music singers, which ensured Albita's exposure to the world of Cuban country music from her early years. Working professionally since her teen years, by the late eighties she had attained some level of recognition among national interpreters of Cuban folk music. In 1988, her first album, Habrá Música Guajira , was released. In 1990, work commitments took her to Colombia and from there she defected to the United States on April 15, 1993, making the southern city of Miami her place of permanent residence. Albita spent some time performing at a Spanish food restaurant in Miami, where she got the attention of celebrities like Gianni Versace, Quincy Jones, Madonna, Sly Stalone, Paco de Lucia, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, among others that soon became her fans. In 1994 she was signed by Emilio Estefan's Crescent Moon label and her first single in the U.S., "Qué Manera de Quererte" , was released.
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José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of... all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play. Due to his achievements in the chess world, mastery over the board and his relatively simple style of play he was nicknamed the "Human Chess Machine". José Raúl Capablanca, the second surviving son of a Spanish army officer, was born in Havana on November 19, 1888. According to Capablanca, he learned the rules of the game at the age of four by watching his father play, pointed out an illegal move by his father, and then beat his father twice. At the age of eight he was taken to Havana Chess Club, which had hosted many important contests, but on the advice of a doctor he was not allowed to play frequently. Between November and December 1901, he narrowly beat the Cuban Chess Champion, Juan Corzo, in a match. However in April 1902 he only came fourth out of six in the National Championship, losing both his games against Corzo.
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José Canseco Capas, Jr. , is a Cuban-American former Major League Baseball outfielder, and designated hitter who is currently playing for the... Worcester Tornadoes. He last played for the AAA Quintana Roo Tigres of the Mexican Baseball League, however he was banned from the Mexican League in 2012 for refusing to submit to a drug test and admitting to taking testosterone. He played for the Oakland Athletics Texas Rangers , Boston Red Sox , Toronto Blue Jays , Tampa Bay Devil Rays , New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox . During his career, Canseco was a six-time All-Star, four-time Silver Slugger Award winner, American League Rookie of the Year, and AL Most Valuable Player. Canseco has admitted using performance enhancing drugs during his playing career, and wrote a tell-all book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big, in which he claimed that the vast majority of MLB players use steroids. Canseco is the identical twin brother of former major league player Ozzie Canseco.
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Cristina Saralegui is a Cuban American journalist, actress and talk show host of the Spanish-language eponymous show, Cristina. She is the creator... of a fashion line of accessories and comforters. Cristina Maria Saralegui was born on January 29, 1948 in Havana, Cuba to Francisco Rene Saralegui, Jr., and his wife, Cristina Santamarina. In 1960, following the Cuban Revolution, Saralegui and her family fled to Miami and settled in Key Biscayne. After graduating from the Academy of the Assumption in 1966, Saralegui enrolled at the University of Miami. In 1973, Saralegui began an internship at the magazine Vanidades. This allowed Saralegui to improve her written Spanish to her level of the spoken language. By 1979, Saralegui was editor of the Spanish version of Cosmopolitan magazine. She continued in this role through most of the 1980s. In 1989, Saralegui transferred her journalistic success to television by launching the Miami-based Spanish-language talk show, El Show de Cristina on Univisión.
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Odalys García is a Cuban actress, model, singer and show host. García, born in Havana, Cuba, started by participating in dance... demonstrations by the age of eight. At nine, she was admitted to the Alicia Alonso School of Ballet. When Odalys was 13, she arrived in Miami, where she began a career in modeling. In 1991, she was cast to host Noche de Gigantes by Univision, alongside Don Francisco. Garcia and Don Francisco became friends during the two years she was in the show, and she started to become famous to Hispanic audiences. Soon, she was chosen to host De Pelicula, a Saturday afternoon movies show. But her biggest break came in 1993, when she was chosen to participate in Lente Loco , as Pupu Pirú, a show that was like a Spanish version of Candid Camera. Lente Loco became a big hit among Univision's target audiences, and Odalys' fame went off the roof. Within years, she was producing calendars, being the object of romance rumors by many magazines, and becoming the spokeswoman of Columbia House's Club Musica Latina.
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Jorge Bolet was a Cuban-born but mostly American-resident pianist and teacher. Bolet was born in Havana, and studied at the Curtis Institute of... Music in Philadelphia, where he himself taught from 1939 to 1942. His teachers included Leopold Godowsky, Josef Hofmann, David Saperton, Moriz Rosenthal and Fritz Reiner. In 1937, he won the Naumburg Competition, and gave his debut recital. In 1942 Bolet joined the US Army. He was sent to Japan as part of the Army of Occupation. While there, he conducted the Japanese premiere of The Mikado. He made his first recordings for Remington. Bolet provided the piano soundtrack for the 1960 biopic, Song Without End, which starred Dirk Bogarde as the legendary 19th-century piano virtuoso, Franz Liszt. However, Bolet's playing was condemned by American music critics for decades as being too focused on romantic virtuosity, so his recordings in the 1960s were confined to fairly small and hard-to-find labels. Only in 1974 did he come to national prominence, with a stupendous recital in that year at Carnegie Hall, which sealed his reputation.
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Andrés Arturo García Menéndez , professionally known as Andy García, is a Cuban American actor. He became known in the late 1980s... and 1990s, having appeared in several successful Hollywood films, including The Godfather: Part III, The Untouchables, Internal Affairs and When a Man Loves a Woman. More recently, he has starred in Ocean's Eleven and its sequels, Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen, and The Lost City. García was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Vincent Mancini in The Godfather Part III. García was born Andrés Arturo García Menéndez in Havana, Cuba. His mother, Amelie Menéndez, was an English teacher, and his father, René García Núñez, was an avocado farmer and attorney in Cuba, and later owned a fragrance business in the United States. García has an older brother, René. When García was five years old, the family moved to Miami, Florida, after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Over a period of several years, they built up a million-dollar perfume company. García was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Miami Beach Senior High School, where he played on the basketball team.
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