National Music Prize 2023 for Roberto Sanchez Ferrer

The National Music Award 2023 was granted to the instrumentalist, orchestrator and orchestra conductor Roberto Sánchez Ferrer, as a tribute to his extensive artistic career in the national symphonic field.

This award, instituted in 1997, is the highest recognition given in the country to professionals in this artistic field by the Cuban Institute of Music and the Ministry of Culture.

For the award ceremony, on this occasion, the jury was chaired by the 2010 National Music Prize winner Pancho Amat, and was composed of Guido López Gavilán, 2015 National Music Prize winner; Beatriz Márquez, 2015 National Music Prize winner; Élsida González, musicologist; and journalist, cultural promoter and music critic Guille Vilar.

Roberto Sánchez Ferrer was born on December 31, 1927, he began his music studies at the Edison Institute and the Levy Conservatory. At the age of 18 he had his first experience as an orchestra conductor, leading a musical revue made up of performers from the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra.

His musical work was reflected in groups such as the jazz trio Los raqueteros del swing, Orquesta Hermanos Castro, Hermanos Le Batard, Orquesta Riverside and Habana Casino.

In 1961 he traveled to Paris as musical director of Danza Moderna de Cuba, and conducted Verdi's Traviata in the first opera season after the triumph of the Revolution.

His work also includes having been a member of the National Opera since 1965, and having been its general director from 1976 to 1978.

Roberto Sánchez Ferrer has more than sixty-five years of artistic life and a musical work, between popular and symphonic, which has made him worthy of the highest recognition granted to Cuban musicians.