Guillermo Montesinos is one of the essential directors in Radio Cadena Habana, the Cuban music station. His performance is endorsed by 40 years of his life surrounded by recording consoles and microphones.
Montesinos records, conducts, and comments specialized programs, and because the day only has 24 hours, he does no more, although by midnight he adds time for himself, and thus remembers his youthful romps with soccer.
He currently works for programs such as: Marca montuna with a peasant style, (created by him), El mundo de la música, Estilos, and Jazz, which as he said, he enjoys a lot because he considers himself “an inveterate and voracious lover of Cuban music”.
From his creative capacity recently emerged Resonancia, a radio project that, as its name indicates, resounds, rumbles, and vibrates on 99.9 FM and 1080 AM on Sunday mornings from 7:30 to 8:30 in the Cuban capital.
One of the program’s purposes is to every week count on the presence of an artist from any art manifestation and thereby position Cuban music as the main axis of that radio space.
«Among our guests we have welcomed poets who are integrated into the urban musical theme and whose lyrics are supported by the work of a DJ; also a sculptor, who during his creative process incorporates music as his inspiring muse. We have also invited artisan Pilar Regina, who is a singer and a puppet maker; and we have had sculptor and also percussionist William Agüero, who merges music with his visual product as a main reason for his creations.
Montesinos has turned the program into a kind of catwalk of interesting and innovative proposals that show how much music can help an artist from the creative emotional view. Others who have experienced this radio novelty are Lázaro Morua, ex-singer of the Van Van, currently director of choral groups, creator of a method for double-bass drums and related to work with the harmonica family, said the skilled radio director.
We learned that Resonancia is a young project of just three months old. It is the result from an investigation related to genres and inter-genres that could enrich the space, based on national music, performed or not by local artists.
The space is very conversational, everything flows spontaneously, it is the guest who calls the shots, I barely speak, I just ask a few questions to discover the wonderful connection that exists between music and the artist’s work. It is a setting where at the same time unthinkable and surprising things are discovered, the instrumentalist affirmed.
The production team is one of the strengths of the program.
«We are few, here the phrase “do more with less” is not a slogan, it is a reality. The team is made up of Yamilka del Risco in editing, recording, sound, and in everything else that may appear along the way, I act as conductor and director, although sound specialists Luis Roque and Luis Ángel Rodriguez sometimes participate in the program as part of the brainstorming prior to each broadcast”, said the director.
Estanislao is an inveterate lover of all kinds of music genres, but since he discovered jazz he got hold of the freedom to move within his musical proposals.
«In the case of the program Armonías universales , for example, there is always room for the work of both Cuban musicians and those from other parts of the world. I always consider important to remember that we are a musical power, and with just listening to all our music being played beyond the seas, from Africa to Japan, one would come across some of our references.
I remember with great pleasure an interview with the excellent American musician Marcos Mihler that shows how, since his visit to Cuba in 2017, he connected with Cuba in such a way that he has not been able to let go of the Island’s musical phenomenon.”
With the experience of his saying, which has earned him a loyal audience, Estanislao comments on current Cuban radio:
“I feel that what radio needs the most these days is an updating, to connect with the radio of these times. For this, of course, a lot of information is needed and, at the same time, vocation.
I think that the first thing radio needs is a heart, a voice and sounds: music, effects, but for this to be articulated, to awake emotions and penetrate the listeners’ veins, there has to be a heart behind all this.
I remember my first adviser , Isadora del Río, a wise woman who, when she did not know about something in specific, she had the decency of asking and right away she would leave to investigate and get in tune with the context. That is a commendable and necessary attitude to imitate.
With Estanislao Cordero one may begin a conversation and not know when it ends because of the wealth of information and experiences that he transmits. He assumed television projects such as Hilo directo, a few years ago; but his restless way of being has taken him seriously on the paths of a screenwriter for audiovisuals.
This list includes projects such as Jazz en línea and Perfil vicentino, the latter sponsored by the embassy of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and under the direction of Alejandro Mayor.
Thus, he continues to discover and approach new creative goals, although, undoubtedly, radio is his beginning and end. Hence, he dreams of counting on his own online channel to give away all the music that makes him to live better.
Translate By Gilda Gil
