PUTNEY, Vt. – Next Stage Arts presents Cuban quintet Espirales Project on Friday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m., at Next Stage Arts, located at 15 Kimball Hill in Putney, Vt. Tickets can be purchased in advance at www.nextstagearts.org. There is also a livestream option. Next Stage will provide a beer, wine, and cocktail cash bar. For information, call 802-387-0102 or visit the website above.
Newly emerging on the Cuban music scene in 2023, the Espirales Project brings together five top graduates of Cuba’s Instituto Superior de Arte, performing across several genres – Cuban, jazz, world, and chamber music. Tania Haase, Olivia Rodríguez, Alejandro Aguiar, Jesús Estrada, and Rodrigo García have led or contributed nationally and internationally to projects across all these styles, performing at Cuba’s International Jazz Plaza Festival and the Habana Clásica concert music festival. They are also teachers who have designed a development program on Cuban music and culture.
“The Cuban-based Espirales Project graduated from the premiere university in Havana for arts and culture, and we’re so excited about the opportunity to present them at Next Stage,” says Keith Marks, executive director of Next Stage Arts. “We love collaboration with regional friends like the Vermont Jazz Center and the Brattleboro Music Center, so this is an incredible opportunity for our region to exhibit how the power of collaboration supports our region through co-presenting international artists.”
The group is led by pianist Rodrigo Garcia Ameneiro. Although his career is still in its early stages, his achievements include the award for best composition at the Stanford Jazz Workshop 2016; first place in the international Vivo competition in 2018 at Carnegie Hall in New York; and special prize in the international Grand Prize Virtuoso Amsterdam in 2019, together with his wife and Espirales violinist Tania Haase; and the Grand Prize at the Rocky Mountain Music Competition in 2021.
This concert is copresented with Vermont Jazz Center.