Paris, 8 May 2026.- The Cuban community of son musicians in Paris celebrates Cuban Son Day this 8 May through an online initiative that brought together musicians, dancers, cultural promoters, academics and scholars of Cuban music, true lovers and defenders of Cuban son, who sent congratulatory messages to son musicians in Cuba and around the world on this significant date for Cuban national culture.
Among the participants were Indira Fajardo, President of the Cuban Institute of Music; Dominique Roland, French academic, scholar of Cuban music and President of the Enghien-les-Bains Arts Centre; as well as the Permanent Delegation of Cuba to the UNESCO, who joined their voices to highlight the importance of Cuban son as an essential expression of national identity, at a time when Cuban culture continues to serve as the “shield and sword of the nation” in the face of aggression campaigns, disinformation and the tightening of the economic and energy siege imposed against the Cuban people by the Government of the United States.
The celebration takes on particular significance in 2026 following the inscription, on 10 December last year, of “the practice of Cuban son” on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO, during the nineteenth session of the Intergovernmental Committee of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Cuban son constitutes a living heritage transmitted from generation to generation by its bearer and practicing communities. The result of profound transculturation processes, it integrates Hispanic, African and distinctly Cuban elements that shaped the cultural identity of the nation. This musical and dance expression, considered the matrix of numerous contemporary Latin American rhythms such as salsa, forms an inseparable part of the gestures, cadence and collective memory of the Cuban people.
At the proposal of the musicologist Adalberto Álvarez, known as “The Gentleman of Son”, the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba established 8 May as Cuban Son Day, in tribute to the birth anniversaries of two great exponents of the genre, Miguel Matamoros (1894) and Miguelito Cuní (1917), and in recognition of one of the most authentic and universal expressions of Cuban national culture.