Roberto Fonseca replaced Ruben Gonzalez in the last tours of the Buena Vista legends from Havana though he could have been their grandson. He grew up in a family of musicians and at age 6 switched from his favorite drums to the piano. When he arrived to Bulgaria in 2008 he was so impressed by the atmosphere and the audience that he wrote the composition Bulgarian for his new CD. The piece includes an ensemble of Bulgarian voices and Roberto himself admits that while preparing for a concert he works to get good understanding of the music traditions in the respective country. Eight years later Roberto was back to reunite with the Bulgarian audience and made his dream (and the dream of the audience) come true by playing his composition live.
„The difference for me for these eight years is that I am going to play Bulgarian for the first time in Bulgaria”, Fonseca said before the concert. “This is a composition inspired by the influence exerted on me by Bulgarian folklore. For that time I have matured and now I can add my experience to my performance. This sounds trivial but is an important step for a musician.”
Melodies from across the world have always been an ingredient in Fonseca’s music, not to mention the powerful African influence on Cuban music. But for a picker of sounds that he is, apart from the uneven beat, it makes a great difference how rhythmic patterns are interpreted.
„The way of playing and the sound of percussions are different. In Cuba and also in Spain the hand is in direct contact with the drum skin while here various drumsticks are used so the sound is more peculiar.”
This however has not prevented him or a friend of his who is a Bulgarian university professor, from discovering the closeness of the rhythmic patterns of the two. Roberto prefers to term this a mystery and agrees with the definition of Bulgarian voices as mysterious. In a future project he plans to use voices known from the Bulgarian-Spanish project Estruna:
„Today we discussed how to create something interesting. Well, we prefer keeping this secret because we plan to perform it with utmost refinement. But whenever you listen to it, anybody will recognize the incredible thing that Bulgarian voices are.”
Unfortunately, the world that we live in is dominated by trouble and violence, so Roberto Fonseca has a very clear message to his listeners. Violence is as old as the world. There are only new ways in which it is covered by traditional and new media outlets. Anybody should be aware that he or she is a human being equal to the rest of human beings, and there is no supreme religion that should be imposed on others. He concludes that music should not be imposed on others either.
„Music is a refuge. It is a way to express feelings, anguish, pain and joy. Therefore in music we can meet and communicate without any problems.”
English Daniela Konstantinova
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