20th International Jazz Colloquium focuses on jazz teaching in Cuban academies

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 28 (ACN) A panel was dedicated today to the management models for the teaching of popular music and jazz in academic centers in Cuba and Colombia, as part of the 20th International Jazz Colloquium "Leonardo Acosta in Memoriam", at the Cuban Art Factory, in Havana.

Daniel Perez Febles, director of the National School of Music, told Cuban News Agency exclusively that the country's academies are responding to jazz in the subject of popular music workshops, specifically at the intermediate level and in a different way at the elementary level.

Perez Febles explained that in order to improve that teaching method, a research is currently being developed that will allow the integration not only of jazz, but also of Cuban popular music, so important in the roots of that genre.

The academy must continue opening up thinking, initiatives and ideas, because currently it is the students themselves who are asking to reverse this view through teachers, musicians and instrumentalists who are linked and trained to teach these styles in the academy, he stressed.

He also pointed out the importance of providing students with subjects that include music production.

The director of the National School of Music described the colloquium as a vital space for the confluence of thought on the different genres during the Jazz Plaza International Festival.

For his part, Santiago Lozano, director of the Music Department of the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, pointed out the need to update study programs due to the lack of academic preparation in his country.

Other topics discussed during the conference included opportunities for young music creators to improve their skills, as well as psychology and jazz.

The 20th International Jazz Colloquium "Leonardo Acosta in Memoriam" will be held until February 1st as the theoretical part of the great event.