UNA CORDA TRAINING PROGRAMME GETS UNDER WAY
THE IRELAND-CUBA PIANO PROJECT TURNS A NEW PAGE
The Ireland-Cuba piano project passes a major milestone this month, bringing two of our Cuban colleagues to Ireland for six months of hands-on training in Irish workshops.
Ernesto Ortiz, one of the key technicians at the National Workshop of Instrument Repair, gets to work on the action of an old upright
Alexis Sanchez and Ernesto Ortiz, from the project’s workshop in Havana, will become the first official students on the Una Corda training programme. They will spend six months in Ireland, getting hands on training from some of Ireland best and most experienced tuners and technicians. It is the culmination of a lot of hard work and planning, and we are grateful for the help and patience of everyone involved, from the Cuban Ministry of Culture, from the Irish diplomatic service, and our many friends and supporters in the Irish music community.
Una Corda has been working towards this moment since its inception in 2007. First came the project’s unique courier programme – still ongoing – in which Irish holiday makers carry vital supplies to Cuba to fix the pianos in Havana’s music schools. Then Una Corda set about restoring the city’s National Workshop of Instrument Repair, to provide the infrastructure to carry out major repair work. Now, after long months of careful planning and painstaking negociations, technicians from that workshop are coming to Ireland to continue their training, and to bring back to Havana the expertise they and their colleagues need.
As part of this exciting new development, Una Corda will be making a unique offer to Irish music lovers – to get their pianos repaired and restored by the experts at extremely competitive rates. The work will be carried out under the supervision of some of Ireland leading technicians and tuners, uncluding Ciarán Ryan of Ciarán Ryan Pianos in Galway, Feena Lynch of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin and Jonathan Smyth and his expert team at Jeffers of Bandon in Cork, and all repairs will be guaranteed.
Alexis Sanchez, instrument technician at one of Havana's busiest music school, has been involved in the Una Corda project since the beginning
The project is also appealing to those who have pianos they want to donate, to contact them, and they hope to recover some lost gems. As well as giving a piano a new lease of life, music lovers be making a major contribution to the future of Cuban music.
Alexis, Ernesto and their tutors will be posting blogs documenting their training. Click here to see the latest updates.
