AfriClassical.com and AfriClassical Blog have always understood that the classical guitarist Leo Brouwer was Afro-Cuban. His daughter Alina Brouwer tells us otherwise:
“Hello,
Just a note to clarify the fact that my father, Cuban composer Leo Brouwer is not afro cuban. Nothing wrong with being black, but we are not. I hate to do this but I have been told by a few people of this as a fact, and it is not.
Thank you very much,
Alina Brouwer.”
AfriClassical Update August 20, 2009
The post of August 18, 2009 reminds us that we unfortunately neglected to post an email Alina Brouwer submitted a short time after writing her Guest Book entry. The exact wording of the email has since been lost, but Alina said she was no longer opposed to the inclusion of her father at AfriClassical.com. She said she was not asking for deletion of the Leo Brouwer page, which she said was objective. We regret the misunderstanding caused by the failure to post Alina Brouwer's email.
2 comments:
The outstanding Cuban-American pianist Alina Brouwer says her father is not Afro-Cuban.
Alina Brouwer is right. Maestro Juan Leovigildo Brouwer y Mezquida, better known as Leo Brouwer, is not Afro-Cuban. He is simply an excellent contemporary Cuban composer and conductor.
Best wishes
Kim L. M. Andersen
Wow. Another sign that Cuban racism is alive and well. Leo Brouwer's father is Dutch, and his mother is, indeed, a Cuban of African heritage.
In other words, he is about as black as our President Obama, meaning he has a white parent of European heritage, and a black parent of African heritage. How sad that Alina Brouwer, whom I hear plays black music, would deny this.
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