In March 2009, Havana will host the 5th"Ignacio Cervantes" International Piano contest. This musical event is the result of the rich piano tradition begun in the first half of the nineteenth century by Manuel Saumell, father of Cuban musical nationalism, promoted in the following years by a number of personalities such as Hubert de Blanck, Cesar Pérez Sentenat, Ernesto Lecuona, Margot Rojas and continued up this day by outstanding contemporary piano representatives.

Ignacio Cervantes, from whom the Contest takes its name, was awarded First Prize in composition and piano at the Paris Conservatory and later he worked as a teacher in that prestigious institution. He developed an intense activity as a compose, pianist and pedagogue, and he is considered the most important Cuban musician of the 19th century.

From Cervantes we inherit a transcendental musical work that results from an authentic synthesis of the popular national tradition and of the idiosyncrasy and spirituality of his time, in a language of his own, attached to the codes of style of romanticism.

In his forty Dances for Piano marvelous musical jewels, he shows the plenitude of this brief, gracile and concise form, managed with the mastery and elegance of the exceptional artist.

Cuba has many young talents as well as a piano school that in the last decades has achieved outstanding results at international contest such as "Teresa Carreño" in Caracas, "Marguerite Long", in Paris" and "Tchaikovski" in Moscow, among others.

In the 3rd "Ignacio Cervantes" International Piano Contest suggests an open program with the basing international requirements, while at the same time it promotes and divulges the Cubans classics. It is also its aim to favor the creation of authors. That is why it includes a mandatory piece of Harold Gramatges and the choice to interpret a concert for piano and orchestra by an Iberian-American author.

The National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC) calls on the world's young pianists to attend this musical feast in Havana and to participate in fraternal and hospitable meeting with our beautiful city and its warm people.