Amid changing U.S. relations, Philadelphia Boys Choir returning to Cuba

It will be George Gershwin in the Caribbean for the Philadelphia Boys Choir and Chorale this summer when they take their annual trip, this year to Cuba for 11 days, Aug. 10 to 21.

Their repertoire will include a newly adapted choral version of Gershwin's Cuban Overture, with new lyrics by celebrated Cuban American poet - and presidential inaugural poet - Richard Blanco.

The choir will give the public a taste of the piece at their annual concert Saturday at Verizon Hall.

The evening also will have them take a musical jaunt to the beginning of space and time, with the world premiere of composer Robert S. Cohen's Genesis. It's a five-movement presentation of stories from the first book of the Bible, with a libretto by Maria V.S. Seigenthaler and Ronald W. Cadmus.

Cohen began the work several years ago, writing two movements, "Creation" and "Noah," said choir director Jeffrey R. Smith.

"I just loved it . . . so I approached him over the summer to see if he could finish it," said Smith, who has known the composer since 2000, when they collaborated on an Off-Broadway musical.

Cohen, 70, said it was a perfect commission.

"I am a very text-driven [composer] who thinks in terms of character, theatrically speaking, and in terms of the message, lyrically speaking," he said from his home in Montclair, N.J. "I'm not a composer who wakes up in the middle of the night with a tune in my head. My works are based on poems or original texts."

Lyricist Seigenthaler wrote the first two movements, but Cohen completed the piece with Cadmus, expanding it to include the stories of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden, Cain and Abel, and the Tower of Babel.

Cohen said Cadmus came up with a unique approach: "Tell each story in the first person, from the point of view of different characters."

God's point of view prevails in the first movement, "Creation," and the tale of Adam and Eve's fall from grace is told by the serpent, Cohen said.

Saturday's concert also will include appearances by choir alumnus and The Voice contestant Nate Butler and local musical theater star Ben Dibble.

Approximately 75 boys are going to Cuba, plus about 15 adult male singers and three staff members led by Smith. Blanco, Cohen, and Jorge Fernandez, a member of the choir's board of directors, will join them for at least part of their stay.

They will give five major performances, including one at the U.S. Embassy, and will sing at some children's hospitals and summer camps. A performance - and baseball game - is planned with the Havana boys choir.

This trip to Cuba will be the choir's first since the island nation normalized diplomatic relations with America. The group went there in 1999 and 2007, said Fernandez, a Cuban American real estate investor who has been deeply involved in reestablishing ties between Cuba and America.

Fernandez also accompanied Pope John Paul II on his 1998 trip to Cuba.

"The pope's words during that trip became my mantra: 'Cuba must open to the world and the world must open up to Cuba,' " Fernandez said.

"So one of my first acts of engagement was to bring the ambassadors of song, the Philadelphia Boys Choir, to Cuba."

Fernandez said the choir's 1999 trip was unprecedented, the first time Fidel Castro had invited a major performing arts group from the United States to perform in Cuba.

Smith said the historic nature of this year's tour demanded the choir find a great work to sing. Gershwin's overture filled the bill, he said, because it clearly reflects the composer's love of Cuba.

"When he visited down there [in the 1930s], he was especially taken by the music and the rhythms, and he loved the nightlife," Smith said. "From what I've read, he just had a great time there."

Cuban Overture reflects that joy, Smith said: "It has such an infectious rhythm, and I find the main melody beautiful."

The piece, however, posed an enormous challenge. "It's written for a full orchestra," Smith said, "and we had to find a way to adapt it for the choir." He worked closely with Blanco to contour the piece around a workable set of lyrics.

Blanco, 48, was born in Madrid after his parents emigrated from Cuba. A naturalized citizen, he moved to the United States with his family when he was five. In 2013, Blanco became the first openly gay person and the youngest person to be the U.S. inaugural poet when he read at President Obama's second inauguration.

When Smith contacted him to write for the choir, Blanco composed a poem about Gershwin's visits to Cuba called "Gershwin in La Habana, 1932," which he then reworked for the tour.

"I wasn't familiar with Gershwin at all before now," Blanco said, "so it was wonderful to find out about his trips to Cuba."

Blanco's piece celebrates the joy of an American artist upon discovering a different culture, one that has seemed more and more foreign since the cold war.

"Ironically, it's so close, just 90 miles off the Florida straits," he said. "At the same time, you cross those 90 miles and it's as if you are in a new world."

Blanco said he hopes Cuba's new openness will help dispel misconceptions - and "romanticized views" - Americans and Cubans have about each other.

tirdad@phillynews.com

215-854-2736

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Philadelphia Boys Choir and Chorale annual concert

4 p.m. Saturday at Verizon Hall, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 S. Broad St.

$24–$44. 215-222-3500, www.phillyboyschoir.org or www.kimmelcenter.org.EndText