The 17th Fiesta de la Cubanía will return to the city of Bayamo, in the eastern province of Granma from October 17-20 to celebrate Cuban Culture Day on October 20. The fiesta will be dedicated this year to the 20th anniversary of the Foundation of the House of the Cuban Nationality and to the International Year for People of African Descent.

In a press conference held at the Centro de Estudios Martianos in the city, Carlos Rodríguez Lora, secretary of the organizing committee of the event, spoke about the program of activities that will gather historians, artists, intellectuals and creators to exchange and discuss topics related with Cuban culture and its emergence and evolution along history.

During the press conference, Armando Hart Dávalos, director of the Office of the Program of Studies on Marti and of the Jose Marti Cultural Society was awarded the title of Distinguished Son of the City of Bayamo.

The event will be the perfect setting to gather all the Cuban cultural institutions such as AHS, UNEAC, Artex, the provincial committees of Performing Arts and Visual Arts, the Cuban Fund of Cultural Goods, and the provincial committees of book and literature, of music and culture centers.

The program of the event includes scientific meetings, literature colloquiums, and tours. Some of the highlights of the fiesta include a gala by Cuba’s National Ballet Company (BNC), a ceremony to commemorate the first time Cuba’s national anthem was sung in Bayamo and a concert by Bayamo-born and renowned musician Adalberto Alvarez and his orchestra.

On October 20, 1868, a few days after the beginning of Cuba’s independence war, Bayamo poet and lawyer Perucho Figueredo presented the people in the city the lyrics to be sung to a famous tune called La Bayamesa. The lyrics summoned the people to fight for the independence of the country and it became the anthem of the independent fighters. It was later recognized as the national anthem. A shorter version of the original anthem is sung now. This day was later declared the Day of Cuban Culture.

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