Luthiers Without Borders:
On the Road to Guanabacoa, Cuba

US luthier joins a caravan to assist Cuban violin students

By Carl Applebaum posted August/September 2002

We come to Cuba as volunteers, but not with political fervor—not to bring in the sugarcane harvest or build roads. Our purpose is simply to repair musical instruments for talented children with no access to such help. In the end, we accomplish more than that and I come away with a renewed sense of why I practice my trade as a luthier.

The idea originated in a group of musicians in my hometown of Olympia, Washington. For more than 20 years, the band Obrador has made a name locally and regionally playing "world music," concentrating on Latin, and especially Cuban music. Three years ago, the band was invited to Havana to play in a festival and, as a gesture to the idea of cultural exchange, the U.S. government permitted the band to go. They were a hit and made many friends—including the staff and students at the Escuela Guillermo Tomás in Guanabacoa, a municipal music school for children aged six to 14. In recent decades, Guanabacoa, a formerly independent town east of Cuba's capitol and its harbor, has been enveloped by the growth of greater Havana. It retains its unique historic identity, as well as the flavor of African culture—and poverty—derived from its origin as a 16th century slave market.

The school suffers, along with all of Cuba, from the privations caused by decades of American trade sanctions, as well as the inefficiencies of the socialist economy, the end of Russian economic aid, and the flight of professionals and capital. Since their first visit, members of Obrador have worked at helping the school, and have sent to Guanabacoa quite a number of instruments of various kinds, acquired by donation and purchase.

The people in my shop had donated their labor to repair and adjust several violins contributed by the shop to Guanabacoa. When the Obrador Guanabacoa Project decided to send people to repair the stock of instruments already at the school—qualified instrument repair services are rare at best on the island—we are invited to go along.

In addition, the group includes Mitch Kiel, a respected piano technician from Olympia, and Vincente Soluna, a wind instrument repairman from the Los Angeles area and former reed player in Obrador. Traveling with us are Michael Moore, Obrador's keyboard player; my partner Judy Lehmann, a jazz pianist, painter, and nurse; and our teenage son Sam.

Our expedition is to be humanitarian, not political.

Although the U.S. government generally forbids its citizens to trade with and travel to Cuba—a policy that is one of the most odious relics of the Cold War—we are able to travel legally under a "license" for humanitarian and cultural exchanges. Even so, the most affordable tickets turn out to be with a Canadian tourist charter airline flying out of Vancouver. This means a long drive across the Canadian border to catch a midnight flight crammed with 400-odd drunken sunseekers, all buzzing with hotel critiques and debating where to find the cheapest drinks and cigars.

At four in the morning (seven o'clock Havana time), the lights and music abruptly come on, as the airline crew assume that we all needed breakfast on Cuban time.

Warm Welcome?

The Cubans had built the airport at Varadero to serve the tourist hotel complex nearby, but it is still very third world. Naturally, there are many aduanas (customs agents) and policias in evidence, but we do not see troops with automatic rifles (as at American and Mexican airports). The enclosed booths we enter for passport inspection do seem forbidding, however.

Embarking on the luggage inspection (the usual suitcases and backpacks, plus duffel bags and suitcases full of tools and materials, plus three violas, a bunch of bows, various wind instruments, and two large boxes of music stands to be donated to the school), life becomes much more difficult. All of our baggage soon is lying open and we find that our Spanish is barely up to the task of explaining why we have lots of sharp knives and chisels, unidentifiable objects, and bottles of strong-smelling liquids.

Soon, everything is taken into custody and we look for salvation to our driver, Geraldo, whose English is a bit better than our Spanish.

Geraldo, a bright man who would be an executive in any developed country, drives us to Matanzas, the next large town, to enlist the help of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), the influential government agency that coordinates foreign cultural programs. The ICAP office turns out to be the home of the lady who represents the agency. She is outraged at what has happened and, after becoming the first of many hospitable Cubans to apologize, sends her assistant Mario back to the airport with us.

At the airport, we spend the next four hours or so meeting the head of the customs office and watching as Mario and Geraldo explain over and over what is in our luggage, and why it will benefit the Cuban people. Eventually, after surrendering our passports, Judy and I are escorted to the Dangerous Goods warehouse in a far corner of the airport. The entire contents of the building are a stack of confiscated boxes of cigars and our suitcases, all guarded by a contingent of armed soldiers. Even then, we have to reopen and explain everything to three nonuniformed women who were clearly in charge. We are getting nowhere until one of the women mentions that she plays the piano. Immediately, it is like being back in the violin shop. What does she like to play? Ah, sí, the jazz classics: El Duque (Ellington), Billie Holiday. How is her piano? Pues, it has some problems.

The discussions break the ice, and we are permitted to load our stuff into the van, retrieve our passports and the rest of the group, and hit the Via Blanca to Havana.

At some indefinable point during the few hours of driving through the tropical afternoon, we start to forget about the airport hassles, and succumb to the lush beauty of the Cuban countryside. There is very little traffic on this, the main coastal highway: a few old American cars (from the ’40s and ’50s), the occasional little Russian Lada (something like an old Fiat), a few modern tourist buses, and horse-drawn carts. After a stop at a cafe, we arrive at Guanabacoa in the warm dusk, and fan out to three different casas particulares (a Cuban version of a bed-and-breakfast inn).

The following morning, we bounce through the rough streets into the center of town. The school operates in a former tile factory that would receive a stack of citations from any municipal building inspector in the United States: a three-story masonry structure, with many patches of fallen concrete, lots of black mildew, and exposed rusty steel rebar. It is built around a colonnaded courtyard, the center of school life, with a huge old palm tree in the center. Most of the electrical outlets have two live wires of varying voltages sticking out of boxes in the wall. Lighting is sparse, air-conditioning nonexistent, and toilets are flushed by throwing in a bucket of water. We see not a single computer at the school—even in the office.

This lack of physical amenities extends to instruments, of course. With the end of Russian aid in the late ’80s, the importation of musical goods from the Soviet bloc also ended. As far as we can see, the only repair work available is what the teachers can do, and parts and accessories are completely unavailable. Most of the violin-family instruments are badly in need of serious setup and adjustment, and many are completely unplayable. Very few are of original quality that would be acceptable in an American school. They are of widely varying origins: some German, many Russian and Czech, many Chinese (although not the higher-quality ones), and even some Cuban violins from a factory in Camagüey province. Most of the bows are deplorable. Even the teachers have, for the most part, well-worn student-level bows. The shortage of strings is so severe that bassists have been driven to use electrical wire with the insulation removed. Music stands and cello cases are homemade.

Viva la Musica

Despite these conditions, music thrives. The government is a strong supporter of cultural events and instruction. The people of Cuba have achieved a generally high level of education, and there is a nationwide system of music schools like Guillermo Tomás. Concert tickets are generally quite inexpensive.

At the school, the teaching and playing are of a very high standard, and I am amazed at the overall quality of technique and tone—particularly in light of the poor equipment available. And always, the sense of ensemble was remarkable. The curriculum, for voices and instruments, includes both classical and popular music. The staff is highly competent as teachers and performers. The maestra of cello at the school, for example, is the principal cellist of the National Lyric Orchestra. Some of the most famous names in Cuban music are graduates of the school.

The warm and energetic directora of the facility, Cristina Arce de Nacimiento, can often be seen at the school entrance being hugged or kissed by a young student. The warmth, closeness, and mutual respect between students and staff are remarkable, even when the Cuban propensity for physical closeness is taken into account. The difficulties of the school building are offset by the hard work of the staff. Cristina works every angle to find building materials to remodel the school and she even comes to work an hour early every day to do janitorial work.

When we arrive, everybody at the school crowds into a big upstairs assembly room for a concert in our honor and everyone plays! At the beginning, we hear classical performances, including some excellent Bach inventions, played on the piano by a ten-year-old boy. Soon, we cross over into Cuban music, with sections being added one by one until we hear professional-quality, extraordinarily complex big-band arrangements. What really strikes me are the enthusiasm and eagerness of nearly every student. The concert takes on the atmosphere of a giant jam with everyone cheering the solos. By the last number, an uptempo version of "Guantanamera," even the office ladies and some of the profesores are up and dancing in the aisles. Finally everyone takes a look at the instruments, supplies, and music stands we have brought. And then it is time to go to work.

Mitch, along with Jorge, the local piano tuner, and with Judy as translator, head out into the school to give first aid to the motley collection of pianos, mostly from Estonia. Vincente and I are shown into a large room adjacent to the entrance hall. It is filled with scores of instruments of all kinds—none operational. A quick survey of several dozen violins yields some idea of which ones might be most quickly put into working condition. Vincente sets up shop at a table in the storeroom and Sam and I move across the entrance hall to a large, high-ceilinged room, empty but for a few tables and chairs.

We start unpacking, and lay out tools, clamps, baby bottle warmer (as a compact, portable gluepot), bridge blanks, bow hair, and the other detritus that fill the typical violin shop—and then the table collapses from a bad case of dry rot and termites. We soon find a replacement and are off and running.

Immediately, it becomes clear that my careful triage is pointless—a group of musicians of all ages, and some of their parents, already are waiting for help. These are dedicated players, and if I can't find time for them, who can tell when any other help might arrive? All the instruments are owned by the school and loaned to the students, so it really makes sense to start on the ones that are in use. In between, I try to get some of the unused ones set up so as to increase the supply.

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