The story
Concurso/Festival Adolfo Guzman in Havana
Launched in 1978 to coincide with the World Festival of Youth and Students, the Concurso Adolfo Guzman honours composer and pianist Adolfo Guzman, who died in 1976, through a songwriting competition that has periodically resurfaced across decades. Its 1978 to 1989 golden period featured performers including Silvio Rodriguez, Pablo Milanes and Omara Portuondo singing the competing songs live, and the contest has continued to recur in recent years with newly composed finalist entries.
The Concurso Adolfo Guzman began in the summer of 1978, deliberately timed to coincide with the eleventh World Festival of Youth and Students, and was built as a living tribute to Adolfo Guzman, a Cuban composer and pianist who had died in 1976 and whose memory organisers wanted kept alive as an example of what they called an artist of his people.