“The burning chapel will take place, at the wish of his family, in the Cervantes room of the Casa de América this Wednesday, November 23,” announced this cultural institution whose headquarters are located in the Palacio de Linares, in the central Madrid square of the Cybele.
It has not been revealed what will be the final destination of the remains of the author of “Yolanda”, “In what quiet way” or “The brief space in which you are not”, who lived in Madrid since 2017.
Milanés had undergone a kidney transplant and suffered from an “oncohematological disease” that forced him to move to the Spanish capital five years ago “to receive a treatment that did not exist in his country,” said a statement from his artistic office when he was admitted to the hospital, over a week ago.
As soon as his art office announced his death early Tuesday morning, tributes poured in.
voice of a generation
Despite the distance they had maintained since the 1980s, his friend and co-founder of Nueva Trova, Silvio Rodríguez, uploaded the lyrics of “Pablo” to his blog, a song he dedicated to his partner in 1969 and which begins like this: “Te I met tearing the chest of death one day. You didn’t know anything and it was you who led her by the hand.”
Cuban guitarist Eliades Ochoa spoke of an “unmatched” contribution to Cuban music, and considered that his “legacy is eternal.”
Born on February 24, 1943 in Bayamo (east), Pablo Milanés strongly embraced the Cuban revolution at its beginnings and later distanced himself and expressed criticism of the Government of his country, but he never broke the relationship that united him with his people through of his music.
He was one of the leading singers of young Latin American and Spanish leftists in the 1970s, and songs like “I will step on the streets again”, dedicated to Chile after the coup against Salvador Allende, became generational anthems.