Press and Publicity
In June 2009 Charanga del Norte was booked by the Barbican in London for its Cuba50 events, performing at Victoria Park with Orquesta Aragón and Changui de Guantanamo on 21 June and then on 28 June at The Barbican itself. Here is a link to the Evening Standard review by Jane Cornwall:
Cuba50 in all its glory at Victoria Park
By Jane Cornwell, Evening Standard 22.06.09
Welcome to Paradise: Cuba50
Welcome to Paradise read the banner over Hackney’s Paradise Gardens, and for aficionados of Cuban music it was. The inaugural event in the Barbican’s Dance Nations series kicked off with cha-cha-cha lessons in the Spiegel Tent, then went outside to strut its stuff.
Three bands, old and new: Leeds-based Charanga del Norte were an ensemble of Latin-loving northerners that included a cellist from the Liverpool Philharmonic. Their blend of European classical music and African rhythms sparkled in the afternoon sunshine, buoyed by founder Sue Miller’s ubiquitous flute.
From Cuba’s east came the all-male Changüi Guantanamo, bird-calling and güiro-scraping in their matching shirts. Masters of rural changüi music, a languid yet upbeat style featuring bongos, tres guitar and the marimbula bass-box, they sang of the countryside and improvised a couple of solos.
Dancing is as much as part of changüi as anything else; the group’s very own dance duo slid, shimmied and twirled in harmony with the flamenco-flecked tres and bongosero Andrés Fisto Cobas’s sinewy percussion.
A sea of paper Cuba50 flags underlined that this was a mini-event, belonging to and yet separate from the free, family-friendly Paradise Gardens festival transforming the rest of Victoria Park.
Cuba50 tips its flat cap to the music nurtured by the island’s half-century-old revolution; the legendary Orquestra Aragon, however, are in their 70th year and still rolling like a well-oiled machine. Here was salsa, charanga, cha-cha-cha … And down in the crowd, all four members of Changüi Guantanamo dancing and shaking maracas.
The recent CD ‘Our Mam in Havana received a four star review in Rock n’ Reel Magazine and the sequel ‘Look Back In Charanga’ is due for release in Spring 2010:
Read the review here:
from rock’n'reel
CHARANGA DEL NORTE
**** (4 stars)
Our Mam In Havana
(CHARANGA DEL NORTE) www.charangadelnorte.com
Nearly a decade or so ago, I saw this outfit playing in the town square in Bolton, Lancashire. They really impressed me with their retro Cuban sounds, led by a front-line of massed violins (okay, then; four) and flute, laced with
delicate but adept improvisations, and sounding totally authentic. Things change, and so do bands, of course. Charanga Del Norte celebrates its tenth anniversary this year —and it’s even better. Leader and flautist Sue Miller has studied with and learned from several of Cuba’s top traditional charanga players, and it is evident in her playing; she handles the vocals too, with a sultry, breathy style that certainly suits the sound.
Her fellow musicians seem to have similarly absorbed the Cuban style, as though from birth, and the result is a bright, good-natured, very listenable and highly entertaining release. It really doesn’t matter that it happens to come from over the other side of the Pennines—Havana, Yorkshire, anyone?
Norman Darwen
