Cultural researcher Zenovio Hernández Pavón is a tireless researcher of Cuban music and its creators. We approached the scholar with questions that he generously agreed to answer about his life and work. He is the author of 23 books on Cuban culture and particularly on its sound heritage. Among them several dedicated to biographies of illustrious figures such as Miguel Matamoros, Elena Burque, Barbarito Diez, Ñico Saquito and Fautino Oramas, el Guayabero’ as well as a dictionary on Cuban composers‘ which has been a book highly valued by critics and creators of Cuban music for its contributions.
Where were you born, on what date and place?
“I was born in Tacámara, a rural neighborhood of Báguano, on July 8, 1959, a place where many descendants of my paternal grandfather Juanito Hernández still live. Of the place I don’t remember anything, because when I was five years old we moved to Cueto, a little more than a year later to San Germán until in 1968 we settled in Holguín”.
Who are your parents?
“I am still lucky to have them very close to me. Zenovio Hernández Rodríguez, driver of the former ANCHAR union who at 90 years old, is still attentive to the operation of his also long-lived vehicles, and Ofelia Pavón Ávila, 83 years old and mistress and mistress of her children’s homes.”
And where did you study?
“I finished elementary school at the Eradio Domínguez school in Reparto Luz. Then I spent a little more than a year picking tobacco in Sandino, Guane, Pinar del Rio (province). When I returned to Holguín I enrolled in José Mercerón, a rural secondary school in Cabezuela, San Andrés, a place where not only the love I feel for books but also the research of two beloved teachers and promoters of culture such as Joaquín Osorio and Armando Cuba had a great influence. Later I graduated in Agronomy at a technological college in Camagüey and started working at the Pioneers Palace. Finally I graduated, as an adult, in the Holguin branch of the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) in Film, Radio and Television direction, thanks to the fact that since the 80s of the last century, I began to collaborate with the media”.
How did you start studying music?
-I have never studied music. Just elementary appreciation and history courses, especially during the splendor of the Círculo de Amigos de la Música de Concierto and, more recently, in courses of the Gabinete de Patrimonio Musical de La Habana (Musical Heritage Office of Havana).
What work have you done in the radio?
“Since the early 1980s I began to collaborate in Radio Angulo, especially since the founding in 1986 of Comentando, a space of particular importance in which Isabel García Granados, one of my spiritual mothers -along with Carmen Mora de la Cruz-, created a weekly section for me. In 1989 we started Todo en la música, a program with which we won several City Awards and National Festivals.
“Later I was proposed to do 58 en Rock, a program that I remember with great affection, which broke lances against the stupidity and intolerance towards this musical genre. In 2006 Jaime Yohan proposed me to move to Radio Holguín, a radio station where since then I have been doing, together with Eduardo Alonso, “De vuelta al acetato”, a program that mainly promotes Cuban music in its period of greatest international repercussion”.
What did working in radio mean for your intellectual work?
“Working in the radio was a great passion. At the beginning I don’t think I aspired to more. One good day the soundman Róger Martínez suggested me to prepare a book about the Rodrigo Prats lyric theater, an institution that gives prestige to Holguín and that since 1962 has staged many of the zarzuelas and works of the Cuban and international musical theater. With its members I had made several award-winning programs in the national radio festivals and with those testimonies and programs I wrote the book Del sueño a la esperanza (From dream to hope), City Award in testimony in 1994. It was fortunate that the editor turned out to be Lourdes González, because I learned many things from her.
“To a large extent’ by the radio have emerged almost all my books. To write the scripts, it was essential for me to read a lot, I had to put together files, bring forgotten figures to light, in short’ research in some depth. Thus arose the challenge of making a story, or at least a historical panorama of music in the province of Holguin. The radio still means a lot, for example, from the remuneration I receive from it is that I have paid for trips, work materials, printing copies for contests, etc.”.
What about your work in television?
“Since the 1980s I have collaborated with Tele Cristal channel making commentaries for different programs, among the most recent ones are Holguín en la memoria, Visor por dentro and A buen tiempo. I have also been a scriptwriter for musical and historical programs, as well as for documentaries by directors like Iris Bonillo and Mayra Aguilera, among them I remember the one dedicated to Mérido Gutiérrez, which was awarded the City Prize”.
Could you tell us about your research?
“When I graduated from ISA in 2000, I was granted a position as a professional researcher at the Provincial Book Center, although by then I had already published two books and numerous works in periodicals such as Ámbito. In 2005 I decided to move to the Music Center, since it is this cultural expression that I am most interested in addressing, this is the island of music and unfortunately there are very few who investigate it with rigor, although I do not disdain to dabble in other topics.
“From my investigations have emerged books like La Música en Holguín, La cancionística en Holguín, Orquesta Avilés: centenaria y mambisa, A Puerto Padre me voy… Tuneros en la música cubana, Siete músicos manzanilleros and El Guayabero, Rey del doble sentido, which has just been published by the Oriente publishing house in Santiago de Cuba”.
How did you come up with the idea of making a dictionary on Cuban composers?
“In the media there is always more emphasis on the performers than on the creators. Regardless of what singers can contribute to the prestige of a work, it is a great injustice and a sign of ignorance, so I have ended up placing greater emphasis in my radio programs on the contributions of composers and musical authors. Listeners to my programs often enjoy works they know but learn about the life and work of their creators, of which they generally know less.
“I started making the dictionary in the middle of the Special Period, so you can imagine how many difficulties I had to face in reviewing hundreds of publications at the José Martí National Library, the Institute of Literature and Linguistics and many other institutions in all the provinces. I registered it at CENDA in 2005, a publishing house was interested in it, but so far I have not been informed about its inclusion in any annual plan, so I am looking for someone interested in publishing it in any variant.”
How is the dictionary structured?
“Cuban Composers: Musical Biographical Dictionary: Cuban Composers: 1902-2022 (2023) of the publishing house UnosOtrosEdiciones, as the book is called, is organized alphabetically by the surnames of the composers included, which exceed the figure of one thousand, in some cases photos are included. As it is very extensive, about a thousand pages, I have decided to work on these and other figures by provinces. I have already published A Puerto Padre me voy…Tuneros en la música cubana, together with other researchers, and I have already finished five similar volumes that I am proposing to the respective publishing houses of those provinces”.
And as for your work as a cultural promoter, what can you tell me?
“Since I directed the Federation of High School Students (FEEM) in high school, I began to imitate Joaquín Osorio by holding contests and talks. Then in the Circles of Friends of Music and Friends of the Book I did those activities together with him, Carmen Mora, Lalita Curbelo and other promoters and writers. In those 80s there was no payment for Resolution 35, but we went to the Book Fairs in the Mountain to wonderful places, also to the Culture Weeks in many places and even to national and international events such as an exchange of cultural institutions in Matanzas or those first Ibero-American Culture Festivals, in which I prepared talks on music in the different countries of this region.
“Then I was one of the initiators of the cultural clubs and I still maintain two monthly ones in the Villena-Botev bookstore and in the Provincial Library of Holguin. I also organize the Provincial Encounter of Music Researchers with the support of the National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (Uneac) and the Music Center, with some of the attendees I have already concluded several books.”
How do your clubs work?
“In the clubs I always try to interact with the audience, I work on my cultural ephemeris in which round anniversaries stand out. I emphasize, for example, the centenaries of musicians and artists, I also highlight those who turn 70 and enter the imaginary club of the septuagenarians. I usually make a contest of knowledge or at least the question of the day and to the winner I give a book, a magazine or disc, with the request that they lend it to their companions, because I systematically work for members of the grandparents’ homes of the city of Holguin. When I am accompanied by musicians or poets I also ask them to dialogue, to communicate and never a long and cold speech, no matter how much knowledge I treasure”.
What prizes have you won in events and contests?
“I no longer participate as I used to in events and competitions. I have a large archive that I want to work on. I really like to incorporate others into my projects, it has several advantages such as taking on several investigations at once and sharing many things with people, teaching and learning. You are always learning.
“In radio I won five City Awards and since they used to only give one Baibrama, I gave those statuettes to members of the teams that worked with me. Without them I would not have been a laureate. In radio I have also received many other awards at the Santiago Caracol, at the National Festivals and at the International Convention in Havana.
“For books I wrote alone or’ with other colleagues’ I won three City Awards in the genres of Testimony (1994), Essay (1998) and History (2011). I also won the Regino Boti in Guantanamo, the Memoria del Centro Pablo de la Torriente, in Havana, the Romerías de Mayo, as well as in Fórum de Ciencia y Técnica and theoretical events.
“I am also grateful for having been awarded the Golden Heart of the Arañando la Nostalgia Festival, the Beby Urbino distinctions and that of Illustrious Son of the City, among other recognitions.”
“I am still lucky to have them very close to me. Zenovio Hernández Rodríguez, driver of the former ANCHAR who at 90 years old, is still attentive to the operation of his also long-lived vehicles, and Ofelia Pavón Ávila, 83 years old and mistress and mistress of her children’s homes.”
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