Cuban Icon Omara Portuondo of Buena Vista Social Club™ Celebrates Her 85th Birthday!

Cuban Icon Omara Portuondo of Buena Vista Social Club™ Celebrates Her 85th Birthday with Special Guests Roberto Fonseca, Anat Cohen, and Regina Carter Announce Select U.S. Cities for Fall Tour.

What is the best way to celebrate Omara's 85th anniversayry and 70 years of performing professionally? A musical party with Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca, clarinetist/saxophonist, Anat Cohen and violinist Regina Carter throughout America's greatest concert halls.

The great Cuban diva and artistic ambassador of her country wants to celebrate with a grand fiesta which represents the impressive sweep of her career – on every stop meeting with old friends and new to perform together much loved Cuban classics from ‘Besame Mucho’ to ‘Veinte Años.’  The tour will reflect the long journey of her stellar career, taking the listener back to her younger years and her continuing love of elegant cabaret, from the Buena Vista days up to the present with different tastes and flavours, of what will be a musical feast, full of piquant sabrosura.

Joined by the amazing gifted Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca, clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen and violinist Regina Carter, the artists will perform timeless Cuban classics as well as songs from their own repertoire.

Since the beginning of his musical career in the early 1990s, Cuban-born multi-instrumentalist Roberto Fonseca has stated his mission clearly: “I want my music to reach people who don’t know me, and I dream of one day becoming a point of reference for my audience.” Although still very young – by the standards of jazz, hip-hop, world music or any other genre – Fonseca has maintained a sharp focus on his mission that has already garnered him global recognition.

Anat Cohen has taken the jazz world by storm, winning hearts and minds the world over with her expressive virtuosity and delightful stage presence. An established bandleader and prolific composer, Cohen’s music is a unique blend of modern and traditional jazz, classical music, Brazilian choro, Argentine tango, and an expansive timeline of Afro-Cuban styles.

Regina Carter is the foremost jazz violinist of her generation. Her quest for beauty combined with her passion for excellence did not escape the attention of the MacArthur Foundation, who awarded Regina their prestigious fellowship “genius grant.”

Through their deep traditions and stunning musical personalities 2016 will bring us the 85 Tour.

The curtains of an era are slowly,  and elegantly coming down, but Omara will forever, as the old showbusiness adage has it “Always leave them wanting more.”

Epoch Times Features The Cohens

“I could easily write a book about Israeli jazz musicians or at least a chapter on The Three Cohens, two brothers and a sister from Tel Aviv, who have achieved stardom together and separately.

Anat Cohen has been leading Downbeat polls as the top clarinet player for years, and she is also a powerful sax player. Her latest album, “Luminosa,” is focused on Brazilian music. (The Brazilian Press hailed her as “an Israeli who seems like a Brazilian when she plays samba.”)

Trumpeter Avishai Cohen, Anat’s brother, has just released his first album on the ECM label, “Into the Silence.” This is a haunting CD in which Avishai’s muted trumpet expresses the pain of loss. The album is a jazz instrumental requiem for his father. He wrote most of the tunes in the six months after his father’s death.”

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Anat Cohen Explains Why Jazz Clarinet Doesn't Get the Respect It Deserves

“‘What a lot of people associate it with is squeaking,’ she said with a laugh. ‘We still have to overcome the notion that clarinet squeaks.

‘People need to remember what a beautiful instrument it is, including in popular music,’ she added.

Back in the 1930s and 40s, clarinetists such as the “King of Swing” Benny Goodman made the instrument the star of dance bands until swing music fell from favor after World War II.

‘People stopped hearing it on the radio and in popular music,’ Cohen said.

Anat Cohen, who appears tonight at St. Cecilia Music Center, is proud to be a clarinetist just the same.”

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