Jane Bunnett: A Life in Cuban Music

Join Jane Bunnett and Danae Olano and they discuss Cuban music and jazz. Jane Bunnett is a five-time Juno Award Winner. She has turned her bands and recordings into showcases for the finest musical talent from Canada, the US, and Cuba. She has been nominated for three Grammy Awards, received The Order of Canada, The Queen Diamond Jubilee Medal, and most recently, The Premier’s Award for Excellence. What started out as a project to record and mentor young, brilliant Cuban female musicians, Maqueque has become one of the top groups on the North American jazz scene.

Danae Olano was born in Havana, Cuba in 1992 and currently tours as pianist for Maqueque. She obtained a Best Bachelor of Arts at the Conservatory of Music Roldan in Havana, then finalized her studies in the Superior Institute of Arts graduating cum laude. She captured a Juno award in 2015 in the Best Jazz Album category with Maqueque.

Ned Sublette will be moderating this conversation. He is a co-founder of Qbadisc and a producer with Afropop Worldwide. He created the cowboy rumba style, a fusion of rumba and country & western. He is a University of New Mexico graduate and a 2003-2004 fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, as well as a 2004-2005 Tulane Rockefeller Humanities Fellow in New Orleans. He has led a number of music and culture seminars for Americans in Cuba and is the producer of the 18-part Cuba Connection series on PRI's Afropop Worldwide as well as the co-creator of the current APWW "Hip Deep" series.