Silvio Rodríguez’s new album Quería saber [I wanted to know] will drop on June 7, 2024. Before the album’s release, we will be able to listen to two singles from it: “Quería saber” (May 24) and “América” (May 31). Here is more news from On Cuba News.

On Friday, June 7, Silvio Rodríguez will release his new album on the main online music platforms, Quería saber, under the Ojalá label. This was announced on his official website, Zurrón del aprendiz. Before that date, two singles will be available: “I wanted to know,” which gives the work its title (May 24) and “América” (May 31). 

“It is difficult to name an album,” says the troubadour in the album description, signed last February and shared today in Zurrón. “First it was going to be Canciones del siglo XXI (menos una). Then I thought about Después. Finally, I decided on Quería saber [I wanted to know]. Although maybe it should be called Quiero saber [I want to know] because that’s what moves me.

“The only song that is not from this century is the last one, that is: ‘Tonada para dos poemas de Rubén Martínez Villena’. I composed this piece at the beginning of the 70s, when Roberto Fernández Retamar asked me to create an album with poems by Martí and I told him that I didn’t dare, due to the quality of those which had been released by Pablo Milanés, Sara González, and Amaury Pérez. Then Roberto suggested that I do it with poems by Rubén, a poet and revolutionary from the 1930s, who we both admired. I managed to put some of his verses to music, but the only thing I decided to show was my approach to these two intense Alexandrian quatrains, so current! At that time, I recorded a version with Emiliano Salvador, Eduardo Ramos, and Leoginaldo Pimentel—members, like me, of that remote ICAIC Sound Experimentation Group (GES). I think this new version is also worth it, because of the excellent musicians who accompany me.

“The other songs, the current ones, I sang at many neighborhood concerts. And I think they are like this young and battered century, which I hope one day will grow wings.”

The term “neighborhood concerts” refers to the tour that the singer began in 2010 with which he visited more than a hundred communities inside and outside of Havana over the course of about ten years; even outside of Cuba.

This is album number 22 by Silvio Rodríguez (San Antonio de los Baños, 1946), who in 2021 released one based on his work with Diákara thirty years earlier; and in 2020, Para la espera [For the wai], in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first to premiere on digital platforms, as will happen Quería saber.

In this new work, with recording and mixing by Olimpia Calderón Arias and Merlín Lorenzo, Silvio performs guitar, vihuela, percussions, and vocals, and among the musicians who accompany him are Trío Trovarroco, Emilio Vega, Oliver Valdés, Jorge Aragón, Frank Fernández, Niurka González, and Alina Neira.  

Translated by Ivette Romero. For full article (in Spanish), see https://oncubanews.com/cultura/musica/anuncian-lanzamiento-de-queria-saber-nuevo-album-de-silvio-rodriguez/

Also see https://lademajagua.cu/lanzaran-album-queria-saber-del-cantautor-cubano-silvio-rodriguez/ and https://laud.udistrital.edu.co/musica/queria-saber-el-nuevo-album-de-silvio-rodriguez