Mireya Castañeda

Maestra Alina Orraca is an essential figure in the history of Cuban choral music. Small in stature, but immense on the podium, always with a smile on her face reflecting satisfaction and fulfillment.

Thanks to her, for 20 years now, Havana has a schola cantorum, the Coralina. A choir of excellence distinguished by its masterful performance technique and passion for song.

On the occasion of the choir's participation in the 6th Leo Brouwer Chamber Music Festival (September 26 - October 12), Alina revisited a variety of topics with GI and discussed the Schola Cantorum presence in the grand event.

The name occurred to me because it is the name of an institution which has existed since the fourth century. Attached to cathedrals in Europe, schools of song and breathing were established, so that children, at that time for boys, could learn to sing for their choirs. That is why, since the project was to teach children to sing, the name Schola Cantorum.

They currently exist in many countries, for example, in Spain, there are nine, and there is a famous schola cantorum in Mexico, one in Caracas. In Cuba there had never been a schola cantorum, that's why it occurred to me, that is to say a school of song, but of course, it had to have a proper name. I started to look around, maybe the Havana, maybe the Cuban, but I thought those didn't belong to me. I had directed the chamber choir at the ENA (National Art School), since 1979. People called it Alina's choir, so I put coro and Alina together, and came up with Coralina. It's true that at the beginning, many people found it a bit strange, but it quickly caught on, and that makes me happy.

We do all kinds of repertory really, we perform sacred music, contemporary music, popular, Cuban and from other countries, fundamentally Latin American. These are the lines of work we most like, but this doesn't stop us from doing baroque, romantic, classical music. We work on the basis of projects. A few years ago, we did an ancient music project with Catalonian Maestro Josep Cabré, along with the Ars longa group, and another project was one of Franz Shubert's music, for his 200th anniversary.

Over the years, Coralina has joined a variety of projects and shared spaces with prestigious groups, known as among the best in Cuban concert music: the Exaudi choir, the ancient music group Ars Longa, and the Camerata Romeu. In 2005, on one memorable occasion, the four groups came together for a series of concerts to perfrom Bach's Magnificat, conducted by Zenaida Romeu. Now the Schola Cantorum Coralina returns to share the stage, at the request of Maestro Leo Brouwer.

It is really a great honor that Maestro Leo has invited us to participate in a chamber music festival, one that is a lot more than that. It's a festival to Cuban and international arts. Leo, in addition to his experience as a musician, his intelligence and vast culture, has a way of finding the best of the world's artists. he is a person who knows literature, visual arts, he knows it all. When I say he has a vast culture, he knows how to integrate one thing with another. I think this festival is more than a celebration; it's a demonstration of culture in general.

I'm happy because I've had to dust off a few scores. We have them, but it's been years since we've sung them, and this is very satisfying. In the concert entitled En la ruta de la danza oculta, we are going to perform the piece Water Night, by U.S. composer Eric Whitacre, with lyrics by the great poet Octavio Paz, in honor of the centenary of this great Mexican intellectual, a Nobel Prize for Literature winner. Whitacre has composed a beautiful work, very difficult, for a large choir and a great challenge for us, since ours is a chamber choir. It pleases me greatly that Leo has asked us to do it.

Whitacre has done several choral compositions based on poems by Octavio Paz, "A boy and a girl," "Cloudburst," "Little Birds," and "Water Night." The original title of the poem is "Agua Nocturna."

Coralina will also participate in the concert El arco y la lira, another tribute to Octavio Paz, and perform Rytmus, by the composer Ivan Hrusovsky (1927 - 2001). Rytmus is one of three studies by the Slovakian composer, of great interest to choirs which wish to include different works in their repertories, as is the case with the Coralina.

The choir director continues, "We will do Leo Brouwer’s Aleluyas criollas para coro de voces blancas (I. El pequeño músico II. El pequeño pregonero III. El pequeño filósofo) written in 1965.

"I have adored Leo’s three Aleluyas criollas all my life. I remember when

Carmen Collado sang them, in the era when I was a student at the National Art School, and she led the Amadeo Roldán women’s choir. Although my choir is not all female, Coralina’s women will do Leo’s three Aleluyas."

And that’s not all. Coralina’s women will also sing with Haydée Milanés during her concert Palabras, a tribute to Marta Valdés on the occasion of her 80th birthday. The group will do the song "Aida" dedicated to this great quartet, as arranged by Haydée. Marta Valdés wrote the song in 1973 dedicated to Aida Diestro (Havana, 1924-1973) - pianist, choir director, and founder in 1952 of the quartet D’ Aida, which included Elena Burke, Moraima Secada, Omara and Haydée Portuondo.

Over its 20 year career, the Schola Cantorum Coralina has received numerous international prizes and won important competitions, among them the Grand Prix Cittád’ Arezzo 2006, one of the most important worldwide; that of the Habaneras and Polifonías Contest in the Spanish city of Torrevieja, 1999; the Isla Margarita Contest in Venezuela; the Trelew, in Argentine Patagonia; and the Miltemberg, in Germany.

The choir has toured Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, the United States, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Germany and Denmark, and was invited to perform at the Vatican as the principal choir during the Papal Audience and the Corpus Christi mass officiated by Juan Pablo II after his visit to Cuba.

The Coralina has had success with its recordings, including titles such as Oh Magnum Mysterium, with sacred works by international, Latin American and Cuban composers; Cánteme, of Silvio Rodríguez songs, expressing, according to Alina, "a vision that Silvio’s songs can be, and are in fact, choral works like any 16th century madrigal;" Cantos de la misa del Papa en La Habana, 1998; and De qué cantada manera, 2003, with lyrics reflecting the works of Cuba’s National Poet Nicolás Guillén.

The Schola Cantorum Coralina has been recognized for its high level of professionalism, but is distinguished more so by other characteristics, most importantly among them, sensitivity and dedication.