Ricardito needs a motto to create: an impulse, a feeling, an inspiration, something that pushes him to the most sublime act that a musician can have.
Maybe that’s why, the day he kissed his mother for the last time, back in 2005, he did a piece for her and even today the words convulse him in his throat and he can’t say a single one. “It’s just that I haven’t managed to cry for her yet”, and as if he were saying something in each note, he treasures that composition with suspicion, which may be the most meaningful thing he has done in his career as a composer.
He has pieces in homage to Polo Montañez, to the stormy days of Covid-19, and more recently he has dedicated a composition to a teacher and friend, and to a student, which he assures is exceptional.
Classical music fascinates him. It has been like this since he started playing the guitar at a very young age in 1973. What would the son of a seamstress and a mechanic dream of being a musician?
For those turns that life takes and his desire to put everything in its place, Ricardo Jorge Pérez Abreu is a guitarist, educator, composer, interpreter and arranger. Easy to say, but very difficult to achieve.
The then Provincial School of Art Carlos Hidalgo received it in the early 70’s of the last century. A neighbor who played the lute made Ricardito fall in love with the parties he did at home, and his mother, with that vision of the future that only they usually have, made it easy for a former musician in a military band to teach him solfeggio for two very complete methods.
Of all the children who came from San Diego for the exams, he was the only one who passed. In 1978 he won third prize in the Amadeo Roldán national contest that earned him a direct level pass to the National School of Art. There he was three years. Due to life issues, he had to abandon it and began a career as a professional musician, until in 1992 he graduated from the upper secondary level in the Guitar specialty, at the Ignacio Cervantes school for professional development.
Regarding his musical references, he refers:
“I continue with the career of a popular musician, but I never disassociate myself from classical music, which has been a concern since I was little, because it fascinates me from composition and creation. I have many chamber works, works for guitar, for three, for lute, for clarinet, flute… From that path of popular music and my passion for classical music derives my inclination for jazz. Since before the first Jazz Plaza festival I was influenced by classical music, also by rock classics, after funky and son.
“Jazz is an indisputably elegant and supreme form of music; It is an expression, it is a genre that for me brings together all types and musical styles, because in addition, they have merged with classical and folk music, and to this day I have it as a way of life; It is also reflected in my classic works. I take a lot of elements from jazz and it’s a combination of popular, jazz and classical music in my style, in my way”.
What is pedagogy for you?
“I have been away from teaching for a few times for various reasons, for trips from which I always returned, for administrative reasons, but I have been back teaching for several years now.
“Pedagogy is something that was born along with my guitar studies, and I think it has a lot to do with having had excellent teachers. My first teacher was Andrés Cruz, he still lives in Artemisa, and my second teacher was Arturo Fuerte; I was also a student of Flores Chaviano, a prestigious professor and composer of classical music in our country.
“When I return to Pinar del Río I begin to give guitar classes at Instructors of Art, and it was a pleasure that my Solfeggio teacher, Beatriz Marcel, a Holguín native turned Pinar del Río, called me to give Chamber Music classes here at the School of art.
“It was a new subject, it did not have a program and we did it at that time.
“My students are my daily motivation to keep going. In the times of the Covid, in addition to helping here at the school with the cleaning and feeding of the isolated patients, I kept on teaching. I would go by motorina to the house of each of my students and, a few meters away, I would give them a face-to-face class. At that time I also took the opportunity to organize all my works by books.
“Something that I believe is essential: I have always thought that students from different generational groups should not be taught together. In other words, the smallest, adolescents and young people, do not have the same interests and some serve as references for others”.
So it was a good idea to link it at that time to the school…
“I think so. As a sample of what we were achieving with the students, in 2003 we did a concert of one hour and 45 minutes with the first orchestra that the conservatory had. The students were involved, all the wind instruments and there was a part of me playing classical guitar music, there was chamber music and it included jazz.
“That is where the Jazz club in the City arose, which was very well accepted by a select public within the population; an important part were the artists of the guild and those of the plastic arts”.
What destinations did Jazz cover in the City?
“I think the first decade of this century has been the best from a cultural point of view that we have had in Pinar del Río. We are already on the third stage and nothing really has happened as important as in that time, in which there were formations of artistic groups and units that led to the development of a cultural movement in the city. There were venues where it was exhibited, and there were spaces for trova, bolero, jazz. It was really painful that most of them closed.
“The companies that subsidized these cultural activities decreased, they had no capital and the artist really, apart from the applause, just like any other professional, needs to live. But no one ever came to ask us if we would do it for free. You can’t think that all artists work for money, you can’t cut everyone with the same scissors. I would have done it that way, to maintain the public, the atmosphere that was generated there.
“The last club was in December 2019. At that time there were others with María Elena Lazo, with Neisa, La Mora, similar in concept, but with different repertoires, and there was a very nice cultural environment. I was up to the peña del Danzón. Today you ask what the national dance is and people don’t know. We know that there is a musical, aesthetic, and ethical development of the new generations, which I respect, but the culture and roots of where we come from cannot be forgotten.
“As an artist I cannot from any concept accept that the non-state sector can finance the private culture of certain and determined artists, and that the Ministry of Culture cannot. It is inconceivable that this could happen to us. It’s hard to admit that culture is being privatized in any way. There are many prestigious artists who have made history in our province and currently have little work. I don’t know if it is a national or provincial problem, but it is time to solve our difficulties in Pinar del Río ourselves”.
As a member of Uneac, what is your opinion of the institution’s work today?
“Uneac does a wonderful job with Nelson Simón at the helm. That is indisputable. I would like it to remain there for as long as possible, because that institution today supports its artists. I lost my roof when the hurricane hit and I never felt alone for a minute. Uneac made efforts as far as it could, and was present”.
And the composition for Ricardo Jorge, what is the composition?
“It is a spiritual act in which ideas flow to me. When I do my act of composition I need a starting point and on it I start to make my musical fantasy. The music is absolute. Two notes for me can mean a sunny day like today, depending on how you phrase it, depending on how you interpret it, but for you it can mean something else. For me they can be the rain, for example, that is the fantasy that the composer has.
“Composition is my lap, it is my spiritual place where there are no problems, where there is no discord or worry. The composition for me is the supreme love”.
The guitar for you?
“My guitar always has to be by my side because it is my faithful companion. My guitar is the medium through which I can clearly express what I cannot with my voice”.
If he spoke then, I ask him.
“No, she talks, but with music. Yes, definitely the music is absolute, it is everything”.
