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French Solidarity With Chile -- And Nueva Canción Cubana
This visually evocative French concert poster announces a performance of Nueva Canción Cubana by Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés—two foundational voices of Cuba’s nueva trova movement—at the Maison de la Culture in La Rochelle, France.
This French concert poster, printed in vivid red and black, announces an evening of Nouvelle Chanson Cubain, to be held on Friday, March 9 in the mid-to-late 1970s at the Maison de la Culture in La Rochelle, the event was sponsored by the Comité Chili Amérique Latine, a solidarity organization supporting Latin American resistance movements in the wake of military dictatorships and Cold War repression.
The composition is dominated by a black silhouette of the South American continent, within which a bold rendering of Che Guevara’s iconic visage appears, adapted from the famous 1960 photograph by Alberto Korda. The revolutionary imagery underscores the political alignment of the event, which was organized by the Comité Chili / Amérique Latine in coordination with La Rochelle’s cultural center.
The poster’s visual invocation of Che Guevara, coupled with the pan-Latinist message of the Comité Chili / Amérique Latine, positions the concert as more than a musical event. It was an act of transnational cultural resistance, intended to unite French audiences with the struggles of Latin America through the voices of Cuba’s most eloquent troubadours. Events like these helped disseminate nueva trova beyond Cuba’s borders, transforming it into a global idiom of revolutionary humanism.
Tthe concert reflects the peak period of nueva trova’s cultural export, when artists closely aligned with the Cuban Revolution were received across Western Europe in solidarity campaigns. The presence of the Comité Chili underscores the transnational character of the event, linking the musical performance to ongoing struggles against dictatorship in Latin America, especially in post-coup Chile. The bold red-and-black palette and militant iconography position the concert not merely as entertainment but as an act of cultural resistance and hemispheric unity. Posters of this type, especially outside major urban centers, were produced in small numbers and rarely survive. This example serves as a vivid document of Cold War-era political art, musical activism, and internationalist visual culture.
Pablo Milanés Arias
Pablo Milanés Arias (24 February 1943 – 22 November 2022) was a Cuban singer, guitarist, and composer, widely recognized as one of the founding figures of the nueva trova movement, alongside Silvio Rodríguez and Noel Nicola. Born in Bayamo and raised in Havana from 1950, Milanés trained at the Conservatorio Municipal de La Habana and gave his first public performance in 1956. By his teens, he was immersed in Havana’s bohemian music circles, influenced by the filin movement and traditional Cuban genres such as trova and son. Though a supporter of the Cuban Revolution, he was imprisoned in 1965 in the UMAP forced-labor camps for perceived ideological non-conformity—a formative experience that sharpened his political consciousness. Released after international pressure, Milanés helped launch nueva trova with a landmark concert in 1968 and soon joined the Grupo de Experimentación Sonora, a state-sponsored collective of innovative young musicians.
Over the course of his prolific career, Milanés released more than forty solo albums and numerous collaborative works. His early recordings, including Versos Sencillos de José Martí (1973) and his 1976 self-titled debut of original songs, marked the start of a period of extraordinary creative output. He was admired for fusing traditional Cuban forms with modern lyrical and harmonic innovations, crafting a body of work that ranged from revolutionary anthems to emotionally resonant love songs. Milanés set the poetry of José Martí and Nicolás Guillén to music, drawing inspiration from artists as varied as Benny Moré, Lucho Gatica, and Johann Sebastian Bach. Later in life, he settled in Vigo, Spain, and though he remained committed to the ideals of the Revolution, he became increasingly critical of its shortcomings. His nuanced political stance and enduring artistic legacy made him one of Cuba’s most influential and beloved cultural figures.
Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez
Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez (born 29 November 1946) is a Cuban singer-songwriter, guitarist, and poet, widely considered the leading figure of the nueva trova movement and one of Latin America's most influential musical voices. He was born in San Antonio de los Baños, in Havana Province, and raised in a family with strong musical and literary traditions. His mother and extended family sang Cuban folk music, and his father introduced him to poetry. Rodríguez began music studies at the La Milagrosa Conservatory in Havana but did not complete them. He wrote his first songs during compulsory military service in the early 1960s, where he also taught himself guitar. After his release, he worked as an illustrator for communist magazines and began participating in Havana’s cultural life. In 1967, he appeared on national television, gaining early attention as a performer, and soon became associated with the Grupo de Experimentación Sonora del ICAIC, a state-sponsored collective of musicians and composers.
Rodríguez’s first public concerts coincided with the early years of the Cuban Revolution. In 1969, he spent several months aboard a fishing vessel, during which he composed dozens of songs, including “Ojalá” and “Playa Girón.” His debut album, Días y flores, was released in 1975, followed by Al final de este viaje and Cuando digo futuro. During the 1980s, he toured extensively and released albums such as Rabo de nube and Unicornio, which broadened his international audience. In these years he also collaborated with the group Afrocuba, experimenting with new instrumentation and arrangements. His musical style shifted again in the 1990s, when he returned to more minimal acoustic arrangements and produced his albums independently.
In the later stages of his career, Rodríguez released works that included previously unrecorded songs written in his youth, such as Érase que se era (2006), and addressed themes such as family, memory, and political disillusionment. He has continued to tour and record, including a 2010 concert tour of the United States, his first in three decades. Though he supported the Cuban Revolution, he has expressed disagreement with some aspects of the government’s direction in later years. In 2007, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima. Rodríguez’s catalogue includes more than twenty studio albums and hundreds of songs, many of which have circulated widely in Latin America since the 1970s.
Rarity
Surviving copies of this poster are rare and offer a valuable artifact of Cold War-era cultural activism and the international resonance of Cuban song.
