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On May 1, Western Washington University Professor of Music Gustavo Camacho will begin a 10-day tour of Cuba with a brass quintet composed of faculty from four American universities.

The quintet’s feature performance will take place at a music festival in Santiago de Cuba titled “Concierto Santiago 2015;” they will have a variety of other smaller performances and classes with local Cuban musicians and conservatory students. The quintet will have the opportunity to travel through Havana, Sancti Spiriti, and Santiago de Cuba while immersing themselves in Afro-Cuban culture and music.

Fifty years of sanctions and poor relations between the United States and Cuba have created a lack of cultural exchanges between the two countries; now, for the first time in decades, professional brass quintet from the U.S. has the opportunity to tour Cuba. The group received a personal written invitation by Daniel Guzman, who is associated with the music conservatory in Santiago.

The brass quintet was formed by Michael Davison, professor of trumpet at the University of Richmond. Davison has visited Cuba numerous times to research Afro-Cuban music and its ties to American jazz. Besides Camacho and Davison, the quintet also includes trumpet player John Aley of the University of Wisconsin at Madison; trombone player Mark Lusk of Penn State University; and tuba player Velvet Brown of Penn State University.  

To learn more about the tour, contact Chris Casquilho, manager of marketing and special events for the College of Fine and Performing Arts at Western Washington University at (360) 650-2829 or Chris.Casquilho@wwu.edu.