Frank Emilio presents Frank Emilio

By way of self-presentation, and in response to the title that heads this album: Frank Emilio presents Frank EmilioAllow me to explain, in broad strokes, my modest artistic trajectory. 

I began to appear in public around 1934, performing danzones in the style of Antonio María Romeu. At that time, I became friends with Manolo Puerta, an enthusiastic musician who set about the task of forming a "French-style" orchestra (the kind used in the performance of danzones) that would bear my name. 

In 1938, I decided to interrupt my artistic activities when I realized my need to study, both in the field of music and in the field of general knowledge.

In 1946, I took the path of art once again, starting to work at Mil Diez radio station. There I established contact with the composers of the group of the feeling (Luis Yáñez, José Antonio Méndez, César Portillo, Jorge Masón, Niño Rivera, Tania Castellanos, Ñico Rojas and others). Then came the initiative to join the ensemble Loquibambia, directed at that time by José Antonio Méndez, with which we performed compositions of the feeling and American music. 

My work has been projected in multiple facets: performances in night clubsBut while valuing all these aspects of my work, the aspiration to make it to the concert hall was beating in me. 

After having studied music with Juana Sánchez, Concepción Castañer, Pedro Hernández, Julio Azanza and others, in 1958 I met the master teacher César Pérez Sentenat, who made my interest his own, and generously guided me for 14 years in the tasks of serious piano art, having presented my first recital in the hall of the Palace of Fine Arts, with works by Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, Cervantes and Lecuona, on July 17, 1959.

Around this time, drummer Guillermo Barreto founded the Quinteto de Música Moderna Cubana, of which I was a member.

The collaboration of the great Cuban musician Armando Romeu (son) has also been decisive in my career, since he was interested in the study of Braille musicography (a writing system for the blind), and transcribed into this method the Concert in F by Gershwin, which I premiered in Cuba with the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Manuel Duchesne Cuzán, on September 5, 1964; Rapsody in Bluealso by Gershwin, which I have played under the direction of maestros Adolfo Guzmán, Félix Guerrero, Rodrigo Prats, Alfredo Diez Nieto, Enrique González Mántici and Rafael Ortega. I have also played the Concerto in A minor by Grieg, all the contradanzas by Manuel Saumell, dances by Lecuona, etc. 

In my piano recital work, I have played, among other works, Saumell's forty-five contradances and Chopin's twenty-four piano etudes. 

In terms of composition, I have written a song, with lyrics by Tania Castellanos, titled Midnight theme, and Prelude and Cuban Fughettafor piano.  

As for recordings, I have made three long-playing records with the Quinteto Instrumental de Música Moderna Cubana: Cuban dances and danzones, Cuban dances and contradances, Intimate hour (with danzones by Antonio María Romeu); an album with music by Ignacio Cervantes, Landscapes of Spain and an album accompanying José Antonio Méndez, in which I also worked as arranger, with the collaboration of the composer Jorge Mazón. 

This album, which continues the list of my recordings, is an initiative of Egrem producers Luis Yáñez and maestro Tony Taño. feelingvery representative. In their elaboration, they have used the new techniques of superimposition and other electronic resources. With these same approaches, other recordings will be made with my modest assistance. 

It only remains for me to thank Egrem for the opportunity to have made this album, as well as to communicate with my beloved and consequent public, the revolutionary people, sensitive to everything human and elevated, through these brief notes on my artistic life, and, of course, not without the natural embarrassment of the one who writes about himself; but this is what my colleagues at Egrem have wanted: to let them know my performance through my own words.