Congratulations to our Claves Choir

People from Sancti Spiritus are defined by music. Few people in the world are capable, as we are, of treasuring genres as diverse as trova, country music and clave. This gift identifies us as a genuinely musical people.

The clave was introduced in Cuba by the Catalonian José Anselmo Clavet, so that it could merge with the rhythms of the patio, enriching itself.

In Sancti Spíritus it is Juan de la Cruz Echemendía the precursor of this melody that took root so much that it was usual that clave choirs proliferated throughout the city, as an expression of the most genuine popular culture.

The choirs at the time contributed to give the neighborhoods their own identity and in them, humble voices, sometimes descendants of slaves, reached an unusual prominence for those years.

In 1914 Rafael Gómez Mayea “Teofilito” created the current Coro de Claves. Since then it has maintained its structure of two voices (first and second voices) alternating with a main guide (also of first and second voices).

The claves, the famous rumbas and pasacalles are part of the idiosyncrasy of the espirituano; there is no social or family party that does not end up singing the catchy melody that in the silence of the early morning becomes more sonorous and emblematic.

With more than a century of tradition, the Coros de Claves are part of the legacy that the grandparents left to the younger generations.

If the history of the towns can be written by their music, ours cannot lack that mixture of melancholy, love for the land and contagious joy that permeates the air when listening to claves, rumbas and pasacalles.

Since we were children we grew up in the shadow of this tradition that must be preserved as an inseparable part of our lives.