This is my homage to Melquiades Fundora who died on 14 February 2009

I have played alongside him with La Sublime in Havana in 2006 and 2007 and this performance at the Cabaret Nacional in Havana  on April 6th 2009 was a tribute to him as one of the founders of Orquesta Sublime in 1955.

Melquiades Fundora played the flauta de cinco llaves and there’s an interview with him on the publications page of this site. The new CD ‘Look Back In Charanga’ will be dedicated to Melquiades and Richard Egües.

Melquiades Fundora and Sue Miller in the Cabaret Nacional in 2007

Estrellas Cubanas performed the Danzon Amalia Batista by Rodrigo Prats at the Danzon Festival in Havana in 2007 – do contact me if you’re interested in promoting an exchange project between Estrellas Cubanas and Charanga del Norte. I have worked with members of Estrellas Cubanas and am particularly interested in getting the singers and percussionists to perform with Charanga del Norte in Havana and also on tour. As these veteran Charanga players are over sixty it would be nice to do a collaborative project sooner rather than later!

We played an hour’s set before Changui de Gunatanamo and Orquesta  Aragón on June 21 2009, booked by the Barbican for the Cuba50 events

Martha Ana Guille y Susan

At the International Danzón Festival I performed with Charanga Orquestas ‘Estrellas Cubanas’, ‘Orquesta Sublime’ and ‘Charanga de Oro’ and gave a lecture in Spanish at the conference on my research and my band Charanga del Norte (the UK’s only Charanga Orquesta). I was featured on Cuban television and radio as something of a novelty – an English girl improvising flute Charanga típica style.

We played the Civic in Barnsley on 7 November 2009 – here’s some video from the gig:

Charanga del Norte perform at the Civic, Barnsley on Saturday 7 November

Barnsley Civic theatre website

Guillermo Davis, Charanga del Norte’s dancer from Guantanamo will be giving a dance class before the concert on the 7 November and here he is in action at a recent performance with Charanga del Norte at the Lakes Alive Festival in Cumbria:

Charanga Poster for the Civic

Charanga del Norte perform El Bodeguero by Richard Egües whilst Guillermo teaches the crowd to dance chachachá, including the skipping dance that goes with the quotes ‘Mambru se fue a la guerra’ and ‘rr con rr cigarro..’ which I play on the flute. York Fiesta May 2008

Guillermo demos a Cuban Danzón