Los Primos Halifax

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Dartmouth, NS
Los Primos Halifax

A not-for-profit org. forged to inspire, support & promote live music, music education & social aware
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An entire generation of young musicians in Nova Scotia and Cuba have learned to play music while learning about each other's culture. 20 years of Los Primos has also created and strong connection between professional musicians from Halifax and Havana.

Address

Dartmouth, NS

Telephone

+19024012104

Website

http://losprimos.ca/

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Our Story

Who We Are

Los Primos is a not-for-profit organization with the following Mission...to inspire, support and promote live music, music education and social awareness, in Nova Scotia and Cuba, through cultural exchange, inter-generational learning and the creation of environments where these elements will flourish.

The Los Primos project began in 1997 when Jeff Goodspeed and his wife, Amara, noted the need, and held a fund-raising event to help purchase musical instruments to give to the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory in Havana. When they made their first trip to Cuba in the winter of 1998, they took twenty-three various band instruments to give to the school. They were absolutely blown away with the level of musicianship that these high school kids had achieved so they invited the first band of Cuban music students to Nova Scotia to attend the Acadia University Jazz Camp of which Jeff was the Director. Almost 200 music students from Nova Scotia benefited from hearing and meeting the talented musicians from Amadeo Roldan School of Music. Now there are literally thousands of music students here in Nova Scotia who know about Cuba first hand and have great respect for Cuban musicians and Cuba’s music schools.

Cultural Exchanges with Cuba – Los Primos Project

The Los Primos Project has been promoting this relationship (Los Primos means ‘cousins’ in English) ever since, and it has made a big difference to many music students in Cuba and in Nova Scotia. Los Primos has facilitated over twenty cultural exchanges to-date where Cuban music students as well as professional musicians visit Nova Scotia and Nova Scotian musicians and professionals visit Cuba. As a recent example of these positive exchanges, Alison Enriquez, a violin prodigy from Havana and jazz singer of note, currently attends a high school in Halifax with hopes of attending Dalhousie University. She has been self financing most of her school and board through performance arts, such as the Halifax Jazz Festival, regular Sunday performances at Stayner’s Wharf Pub & Grill on the Halifax Waterfront, with the Dalhousie Chamber Orchestra and other performances

The Instrument Campaign

During the first eight years of Los Primos, Jeff and Amara delivered more than 200 tuned and refurbished as well as new instruments to Cuba. To date almost 650 instruments have been delivered to Cuba through various channels: Canadians travelling to Cuba, Cuban music students returning home, and by special cargo shipment. Los Primos has made donations of musical instruments to five music schools in Havana, as well as schools in Cienfuegos, Matanzas, Camagüey, Holguin, Bayamo and Santiago. Los Primos have become good partners with the Cuban National Centre for Arts Schools and some of the donated instruments are being played by members of the National Symphony Orchestra. Los Primos have a great partner in Long and MacQuade who's instrument repair department in Halifax makes sure that all the instruments are in top playing condition.