New Haven Arts, Culture Group Head To Havana, Cuba Jazz Festival

NEW HAVEN, CT —Emphasizing the first part of its name, nine from New Haven's International Festival of Arts & Ideas are off for a "cultural exchange trip" to Cuba’s Havana Jazz Festival Jan. to Jan. 23.

At the invite of Cuba’s Minister of Culture in partnership with renowned jazz pianist and prior Festival performer Nachito Herrera, the festival invited staff, board, and fellow arts organizations to Cuba.

Of those, nine people will travel to Havana.

“Thanks to a long relationship with both famed pianist Nachito Herrera and his manager and wife Aurora Gonzalez, I was thrilled to be invited as a special guest of theirs at the Havana Jazz Festival,” Festival Executive Director Shelley Quiala said. “I was equally excited to be invited to bring along arts and culture professionals and supporters from New Haven to join the delegation from Minnesota.”

The group will partake in cultural exchange by exploring Havana’s rich cultural heritage through curated tours, meetings, and nightly attendance of the world-famous Havana Jazz Festival. The trip features a fully programmed itinerary; all invitees paid their own way. The group will visit museums including the Ernest Hemingway Museum, National Music Museum, Centro de Altos Estudios de Fidel Castro; engage in meetings with cultural groups like Fabrica de Arte; and participate in workshops with Herrera and other Cuban artists.

“We will be in fellowship with Cubans who love and honor musical and artistic skill just as members of our delegation do,” Quiala said.

“The fact that New Haveners can be a part of this international artistic experience is exactly the kind of opportunity the Festival will be looking to expand upon” she said. “Our expression, our love, and our appreciation for the arts is such a deeply human part of us. What better way to express that humanity than to be welcomed into a neighboring country to share in the joy of their cultural heritage?”

In addition to collaborating artistically, the delegation will distribute musical instruments and medical and cleaning supplies donated by individuals and the NGO organization MATTER based in Minnesota.

To date, the partnership between MATTER, Herrera and Gonzalez has delivered more than 130,000 pounds of medical supplies to Havana to support the island’s medical staff and services. Also delivered were musical instruments to the Havana-based school Amadeo Roldan.

Along with members of the Arts & Ideas Festival staff, Lisa Dent, Executive Director of Artspace, Brianna Williams, Manager of Visitor Services and Operations at Creative Arts Workshop, community leader and philanthropist Elsie Chapman, and New Haven Public Schools’ Student Retention Specialist and Festival board member Michael Twitty are traveling to Cuba for the cultural exchange.

"Our world is a melting pot of diversity, and we can be enriched by each visit to exchange ideas, share our stories, and recognize that no matter the distance between our great city of New Haven and theirs, we all have commonalities that will bind us together to make this world a better place for all,” Twitty said.

Herrera will be opening and closing the Havana Jazz Festival and actively shaping the Festival delegation’s experiences in Cuba.

Festival executive assistant and jazz musician Cliff Schloss said he was "thrilled to join his colleagues and neighbors in purchasing a ticket to Cuba."

“I feel beyond blessed to have the opportunity to represent the Festival and our country and connect with the Cuban people," he said. "I’m looking forward to experiencing the power and beauty of Afro Cuban music and culture.”

The group will return to the Elm City with new ideas, new cultural connections, and an international perspective on New Haven’s role in the world. In addition to using this opportunity to bring new ideas and artistic collaborations to Arts & Ideas, the Festival plans to document the experience. Staffers will take over the Festival’s Instagram account (@artsideasct) so New Haveners can experience the Jazz Festival alongside them.

This trip is the first of more planned cultural exchange trips for the Festival. “I envision a future for the Festival in which we lead delegations to exchange in and share our passion for artistic performance across the globe with fewer barriers to joining us,” Quiala said.

About the International Festival of Arts & Ideas

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas is a year-round organization that culminates with an annual celebration of performing arts, lectures, and conversations each summer in New Haven, Connecticut. The Festival convenes leading artists, thought leaders, and innovators from around the world for dynamic public programs to engage, entertain, and inspire a diversity of communities.

Rethink community. Honor the Earth. Embrace your roots. Meet new neighbors. Baila en la calle. Break the fourth wall. Learn something new. Read the future. Connect with the Festival, and connect it all. May 4-June 26, 2022.

The 2022 Festival will take place virtually and in open spaces in downtown New Haven, in the heart of the northeast corridor, two and a half hours south of Boston and 90 minutes north of New York City.

The Festival was established in 1996, by Anne Calabresi, Jean M. Handley, and Roslyn Meyer, who envisioned an annual celebration in New Haven—a city steeped in a rich array of cultural and educational traditions—distinguished from other arts festivals by its fusion of the arts with events centered on sharing ideas.

The Festival is presented with major support from Yale University, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Connecticut Office of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Connecticut Humanities, a non-profit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from The City of New Haven, the Avangrid Foundation in partnership with United Illuminating and Southern CT Gas, media sponsor Connecticut Public, and our generous community of individual supporters.