the troubadour Pedro Luis Ferrer announced that will offer a second concert in the hall of the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana due to the insignificant number of tickets that were sold to the population for the first concert.
Ferrer said that the second concert will take place this Wednesday (one day after the first), and assured that the Cuban Institute of Music promised “not to distribute invitations, and to sell absolutely all the tickets at the box office (maybe I’ll have to do box office?).
The musician said he felt overwhelmed after learning from publications on the networks that many more invitations were distributed to “artists, intellectuals, officials and workers in the cultural sector, colleagues in the musical union” than tickets to the public.
“The initiative to present myself in Havana was completely mine. I began to gradually manage it, and after struggling for a while, it turned out to be Fine Arts, something that was above my expectations. It was my wish —I said it from the beginning— to present myself in a small room, as I have been doing for years in Europe and the US”, explained Ferrer, who specified that the initiative to present myself in a small room is due to the small format of his music.
“If God and the institutions make it possible, in view of the avidity expressed by the public, before the end of the year I will return with my little band, and we will be able to try it in a more comfortable space. As for me, I beg your pardon for the inconveniences and unforeseen events”, he concluded.
This Saturday, Cubans who were queuing to buy tickets for the concert next Tuesday they protested due to the insignificant number of seats that were sold to the population.
“Only 33 tickets for the Pedro Luis Ferrer concert were sold to the public. Of this line that remained in the rain, although many of us crossed under the laurels, only 10 people entered. 3 tickets were sold at the box office per person for a total of 33”, denounced the Cuban Beatriz Alonso.
This Cuban specified that the hall of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana where the concert will take place has capacity for 230 people, of which 197 will be guests.
Likewise, Alonso shared a video where the dozens of people who were queuing went to demand answers about the poor ticket sales and were rebuked by the museum custodian who told them “Go complain to the Institute of Music!!! !”.
The now two concerts of the troubadour will be in the company of his daughter, Lena Ferrer and could be carried out thanks to the “good offices” of the National Center for Popular Music, an institution where Ferrer worked, the musician said recently.
“I had spent months trying to find —through a dear colleague— a modest venue to offer a troubadour concert in Havana, in the company of my daughter Lena, without much fuss or noise. To tell the truth, I didn’t know if the administrators and managers would have the freedom to offer me their space today,” said the singer-songwriter, who lives in the United States.
He enthusiastically stated that he would sing to the “humble island people who continue to love us.”
The Cuban musician, who has always maintained its oppositional position against the regimein October 2022 broke with the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), after a letter from the official organization that denied repression of protesters in protests against government management in the midst of the country’s energy crisis.
In June of last year, the Cuban regime also tried to sell a minimum group of tickets before what turned out to be the last presentation of Pablo Milanés before the Cuban public.
On that occasion, the concert had to be transferred from the National Theater to the Sports City due to popular pressure.
