Septeto Santiaguero won its first Latin Grammy this November, in the category of Best Traditional Tropical Album for its CD 'No quiero llanto: Tributo a Los Compadres', recorded with Dominican José Alberto, "El Canario."

So Cuba did not win the Guinness World Record for the biggest Rueda de Casino (salsa wheel dance) this November but 482 couples had a very good try on Havana's Malecon for 15 minutes, possibly the longest time

"La gozadera," by Puerto Rican singer, Marc Anthony, and Cuban band, Gente de Zona, won here two Lucas awards, for the best video clip of the year in Cuba, during a gala in which Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias was also awarded.

In November The Guardian news site offered a webchat with Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta:

Wifredo Lam's work lies between East and West, Surrealism and tradition, Africa and the Caribbean, Europe and America. Lam's career covers academic training in 1920's Madrid, an encounter with Cubism and Surrealism in Paris, collaboration with André Breton and others in Marseille in 1940-1, and his engagement with Caribbean intellectuals in Martinique, Haiti and Cuba during and after the Second World War. His work which defined new ways of painting for the New World, was greeted with consternation and acclaim in New York. Later in his career he worked alongside Fontana and the Situationists in Europe during the 1960s.
Tracing a career of fifty years, this exhibition is made in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Reina Sofia in Madrid. It is the first museum exhibition in London since 1952 of this artist's work and confirms Wifredo Lam's place at the centre of global modernism.

As the U.S. and Cuba re-establish diplomatic relations, Latin music execs are scouting the island for crossover hits.

Ivan Giroud, president of the Havana Film Festival (3-13 December 2015, Havana) is now considered one of the most qualified specialists in Latin American Cinema.

NEW YORK — In 1973, a group of mostly classically trained musicians formed a band that changed the direction of Cuba's music and reached the American mainstream for the first time since the U.S. had severed diplomatic ties with the government of Fidel Castro in 1962. With a virtuoso technique, the group smashed together an explosive mix of traditional Cuban influences, Afro-Cuban rhythms, funk, jazz rock and classical.

"This is the time for curiosity and for skepticism, for openness and for critical thinking, for inspiration and for action" announces the spot promoting the TEDx festivals. This event comes to Cuba for the second time in its edition Futurisla with the purpose to facilitate a world communication about a shared future, and it is created from TED (technology, entertainment and design), a non-profit organization dedicated to those ideas that are worth to be spread.

At last! A serious analysis in English, not just of what Cuba did to put culture at the centre of its revolution more than 50 years ago, but also with the valid aim of looking at what we, outside of Cuba and in particular in Britain, could learn from it. A British academic, Gordon-Nesbitt believes that the value of art begins with the actual experience of culture and the arts rather than some of the effects such as the art market and the wealth potential of the ‘creative industries’, unlike the policies of past and present Tory governments. Withdrawing the state from the arts and encouraging market forces to dictate our own culture, erodes the idea of art as essential to society.

Writer, critic and painter Pedro de Oraá has been awarded the National Fine Arts Award 2015, granted each year in Cuba to an outstanding creator for the lifetime achievement.

On 27 October the US General Assembly voted on the resolution against the blockade by the US against Cuba: 191 votes for the resolution, 2 votes (USA and Israel) against. No abstentions for the first time ever, but the blockade largely remains in place despite the talks since 17 December 2014.

The programme for the first Havana-Glasgow Film Festival includes film screenings at Glasgow Film Theatre and Gilmore Hill including UK premieres, Q&A talks with Cuban filmmakers, and is linked with a book launch at the CCA and other events.

Watch this video clip for the song 'Juntemonos' (Let's get together) by Team Cuba de la Rumba. How many stars do you recognise? Enjoy!

The Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez gave this interview in the same week in September that he was celebrating the fifth anniversary of his tour of free concerts for the poorest neighbourhoods in Cuba. Silvio reflects on the challenges which Cuba faces in its relations with the United States; he analyses the challenges of Cuban culture in the face of economic reforms which are being developed in the country; he makes an impassioned defence of poetry and expresses his desire to make a tour of Spain after 9 years of absence from Spanish stages.