Rough Guide to the Music of Cuba 2009 Compiliation CD plus bonus CD Sierra Maestra:Soul of the Nation
The Rough Guide series of CDs has succeeded in bringing to the fore the idea that many people who visit a country do so in search of the music. This is especially true in the case of Cuba, a country with unparalleled musical riches.

Enter the competition to win a 5-seat Stalls box for you and your friends at the Thursday 29th July 2010 show of Carlos Acosta: Premieres at the London Coliseum

Watch a fascinating video of Carlos Acosta interviewed during rehearsals for his new show: PREMIERES. Click here for link to video

Gilles Peterson presents Havana Cultura – New Cuba Sound
Havana Club & Brownswood Recordings 2009 – 2 CDs & booklet

Havana Cultura- a global cultural initiative by Havana Club rum – has pulled a master stroke by inviting the great DJ and lifelong enthusiast Gilles Peterson to compile a CD of new Cuban sounds.

Asere: Junio Groove
Astar 2009

Win a pair of tickets to see Cuban band Asere at RichMix arts centre, London Thursday 1 July 2010

The 30th Fiesta del Fuego (Caribbean Fiesta of Fire), which takes place 3-9 July in Santiago de Cuba will be a reflection of the current cultural diversity of the Caribbean region.
Orlando Verges, director of the Casa del Caribe, one of the institutions responsible for this event, explained to the press that the Festival of the Caribbean will have a broad national and international presence, this time with representatives from no less than 18 countries.
This time the festival is dedicated to culture from Pernambuco (brazil) and Curacao (Dutch Antilles) and there are artistic delegations from both zones.

Cuba50 has two pairs of free tickets to see

Silvio Rodríguez talks with Puerto Rican newspaper and website El Nuevo Día about Cuba, the United States, Fidel, the Revolution, the blockade, Chavez, freedom…

Interview with Esteban Morales, researcher of the University of Havana

"Every time we sang to people in Haiti it was like they were reborn," says Teresita Miranda, a member of a Cuban Creole choir which has just returned from a tour of the country.

"Just looking at their faces as they listened to our songs was extremely moving," Ms Miranda told BBC World Service.

The representative of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Havana, Ana Maria Navarro, congratulated Cuban researcher Humberto Rios Labrada who last week became the first Cuban to receive the Goldman Environmental Prize, sometimes called the Green Nobel and the largest prize in the world given to grass-roots environmentalists.

Liverpool Biennial has announced the artists participating in Touched, the International exhibition for the 6th Liverpool Biennial International Festival of Contemporary Art, 18 September – 28 November 2010.

"Governments cannot wait for a social consensus in order to guarantee respect for people's rights," Mariela Castro, head of Cuba's National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), told IPS on the occasion of the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia in Cuba on 17 May.

State institutions, non-governmental and religious organisations, academics, artists and above all gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transvestites and transsexuals marked the Day Against Homophobia with a full two weeks of activism, celebrations, workshops, demands for full respect for sexual diversity, a street procession of conga dancers and bands in central Havana, and an ecumenical celebration in defence of the Christian principle of non-discrimination.

Five girls and five boys are taking time to remember the hurricane that devastated their home town of Gibara in eastern Cuba two years ago, mingling their memories with their dreams, and filming images to make a video message for children in Haiti.

"What I like best is learning through playing," said one of the primary school children selected to take part in an audiovisual production workshop in Gibara.