Music of Granma, Cuba

  History of music in Bayamo.

 In any study about the patriotic and cultural history of Cuba, it is unavoidable to stop at the legated heritage of Bayamo, because there are uncountable musical contributions to Cuban music carried out by the people of this city in more than five hundred years of its existence.  

In the colonial period, the economic and commercial activity originated in Bayamo River, was the cause for Bayamo becoming one of the most prosperous cities, likewise it was among those  that "marked with particular encouragement the gestation, birth and development of an authentically national sound heritage . "

Before the 19th century, Bayamo lived stages of true musical splendor. Here, the most important and prolonged expressions of this art took place and they were united to the military and liturgical activities, very properly of the time; for instance processions and masses that friars such as Bartolomé de las Casas carried out, as part of the evangelization of the natives in the early XVI century, but especially from the XVII century in which Catholicism was more strongly established in that place than in any other city perhaps.

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