Culture

The XIII Habanos Festival will begin on February 21 with a Welcoming Evening, which will be celebrated at the Gran Teatro de la Habana with an exclusive concert held by the Cuban maestro Leo Brouwer, Founder and Director Emeritus of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Córdoba and winner of a Latin Grammy 2010, who will present a show entitled “Leo Brouwer Essential” with music directed and written by this made famous Cuban composer and musician, in the which he will evoke with his music the magic of the Habano and of Cuba.

The first drawings on pieces of paper intended to wrap cigars were printed in 1831 at the La Lealtad workshop. Chromolithography -imported since 1859- was then used in the industry of cigarette making long before it landed in the habano industry. It took nearly 20 years for chromolithography to highlight the decoration of habano boxes and cases.

A great Cuban musician with longstanding faithfulness toward habanos, the artist took part in some of the Festival’s events without going unnoticed.

The preview of British film Cosiduring the 12^th Habano Festival, attended by the movie’s director Christopher Menaul, producer Stephen Evans and actress Mia Maestro, has been just another of the event’s artistic highlights.

Her presence and exhibition related to Cuba’s three flagship products –tobacco, rum and coffee- are luring attendees to the 12^th Habano Festival.

Inspired in the peculiar realm of Cuban premium cigars, three artisans have joined their creative hands to come up with exclusive pieces that shine with originality and dazzling fantasy.

The Cuban fine artist has given himself a good name in the passionate world of habanos thanks to the beauty and quality of his humidors.

Completely handmade, Janio Nuñez Leal’s sculptures are tokens of a one-and-only kind of art in the whole wide world: he turns tobacco leaves into collectible artworks.

As a regular smoker, he likes all hand-rolled cigars, even those cigar rollers make for themselves.

The six-time Grammy Award-winning Cuban musician, his great Brazilian friend who’s also grabbed the gramophone and the iconic Portuguese singer will make up the centerpiece of the habano big bash and evocation during the opening night.