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Gran Teatro de La Habana
Havana
The capital's opera house, on the Prado, still working.
Music & dance
Where son, trova, danzón and rumba were made, and the halls that still play them
Cuban music was not made in Havana. Son came out of the mountain country around Santiago and Guantánamo, rumba out of the dockyards and solares of Matanzas and Havana harbour, danzón out of a Matanzas ballroom — and each travelled west along the same railways that carried the sugar. What the capital did was orchestrate it, record it and send it back out.
This is the one resource you consume in the evening. A casa de la trova costs little, starts early and runs on live sets rather than a programme — and the theatres sell tickets for whatever is on that week.
Where it comes from
Santiago de Cuba — son and trova
Santiago de Cuba →The mountains behind the city gave the son its instruments and the city gave it a stage. The Casa de la Trova on Heredia is the oldest of its kind, and the folkloric companies rehearse a few streets away.
Municipalities: Santiago de Cuba, Palma Soriano, El Cobre
Guantánamo — changüí
Guantánamo →Changüí is son's older, rougher relative, played on tres, marímbula, bongó, güayo and maracas, and it stayed in this province. The tumba francesa societies are here too.
Municipalities: Guantánamo, Baracoa, El Salvador, Yateras
Open on the mapMatanzas — danzón and rumba
Matanzas →Two forms began here that could hardly be less alike: the danzón, danced in ballrooms from 1879, and the rumba, played in yards and on the docks. The Sauto theatre covers the first; the second is still a street tradition.
Municipalities: Matanzas, Cárdenas, Unión de Reyes
Open on the mapHavana — where it all met
La Habana →Everything that arrived from the east was arranged, recorded and exported from here, and the halls that did it are still standing along the Prado and Galiano.
Municipalities: Habana Vieja, Centro Habana, Plaza de la Revolución
Open on the mapVilla Clara and the theatre circuit
Villa Clara →Provincial cities built themselves opera houses, and they kept them. Remedios adds a music museum in the house of a composer who wrote for both the concert hall and the dance band.
Municipalities: Santa Clara, Remedios, Caibarién
Open on the mapCienfuegos — the bay and its theatre
Cienfuegos →A planned nineteenth-century city with a theatre to match, on a square that has barely changed.
Municipalities: Cienfuegos
Open on the mapPlaces to visit
Real, mapped places where the work happens — factories, curing barns, estates, quarries. Each one opens on the atlas map at its own coordinate.
Teatro Sauto
Matanzas
An 1863 house with a horseshoe auditorium, in the city where the danzón began.
Teatro Tomás Terry
Cienfuegos
An 1890 theatre on the main square, with a painted ceiling and wooden seats.
Teatro La Caridad
Santa Clara
Built in 1885 for the city and still its stage.
Casa de la Trova
Camagüey
A house of trova on the main square, open in the afternoon.
Casa del Changüí
Guantánamo
The house of changüí, in the province the music never left.
Where to buy it
Counters, markets and shops you can actually walk into, with the town each one is in.
Morro Artex
Santiago de Cuba
A culture-house counter on the Morro road, where recorded music is sold.
Artex Guanajay
Guanajay
The same chain in a small western town, an hour from Havana.
Museums & things to do
The museums, trails and music halls that grew up around it.
Museo de la Música Alejandro García Caturla
Remedios
A music museum in the house of a composer, in a small colonial town.
Museo de la Música
Santiago de Cuba
Instruments and scores, a short walk from the trova street.
Sede del Conjunto Folklórico Cutumba
Santiago de Cuba
The base of a folkloric company that rehearses and performs on site.
Tumba Francesa
Guantánamo
The tumba francesa society, on UNESCO's intangible heritage list.
Casa de la Música de Galiano
Havana
A ticketed hall on Galiano with a fixed nightly bill.
Places from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Information only — CubaAtlas maps these places, it does not represent or transact with any of them.
The forms, and when they appear
Danzón
1879founded · Matanzas
Miguel Faílde's "Las alturas de Simpson" is taken as the first, and the ballroom form spread from here across the island.
Bolero
1883founded · Santiago de Cuba
"Tristezas", by the Santiago tailor and guitarist Pepe Sánchez, is the first bolero anyone wrote down.
Sexteto Habanero
1920founded · Havana
The line-up that fixed what a son band is: tres, guitar, bongó, claves, maracas and bass.
Trío Matamoros
1925founded · Santiago de Cuba
Three voices and two guitars from Santiago whose repertoire is still played nightly across the island.
Mambo
1938founded · Havana
Orestes López wrote a danzón called "Mambo" and gave a whole style its name.
Chachachá
1951founded · Havana
Enrique Jorrín slowed the mambo down so that dancers could keep up, and named it after the sound their feet made.
Los Muñequitos de Matanzas
1952founded · Matanzas
The group that carried rumba from the yard to the stage, and the reason the form was written down at all.
More of what Cuba makes
Tobacco & cigarsThe soil, the valleys and the houses behind the Havana cigarSugar & rumThe cane valleys, the mill towns and the distilling coastCoffee & cacaoThe mountain plantations of the east, and Cuba's chocolate townMining & mineralsCopper since the 1500s, nickel in the east, marble on the Isle