Yaiza enjoyed Olga Cerpa and Mestisay's live performance this Saturday as part of the extensive program of celebrations in honor of the Virgen de Los Remedios. The town square was packed and totally devoted to the charisma and artistic personality of Olga Cerpa and her band, who offered sounds and songs from the Canary Islands, although they also made the leap to other continents, gifting inspirations that are the heritage of art, and art is universal.
The square felt very Canarian with the musical tribute of the artists, eight in total, as there are eight Canary Islands, to César Manrique, or the folías that Olga Cerpa went down to perform next to her audience, externalizing feelings, "I got goosebumps," many agreed after those intense emotions, but those who enjoyed the performance could also feel like they were in a corner of Havana, in the colorful neighborhood of La Perla in San Juan de Puerto Rico, or in streets of Cape Verde close to embracing the sea.
Yaiza boarded the Mestisay boat captained by Manuel González, creator of the group in the early eighties, musical director, and composer of many of their hits, and Yaiza enjoyed the intercontinental journey where the couplets, the son, the tenths, the cumbia, and the Canarian airs converged on the same deck of cultural expression where there are no classes, where creation and joy triumph as a consequence of the first.
About twenty songs, including Graciosera, Décimas de Lisboa, Son del Perola, and Rosa de los vientos, rounded off a repertoire that summarizes the last five record productions of Olga Cerpa and Mestisay. Voice, strings, winds, skins, and keyboard harmonized in a spectacular concert.
The artists are preparing their suitcases to travel to Colombia, the land of cumbia, a genre with indigenous, African, and European roots, which Mestisay performed in Yaiza, as mestizo is their rich musical production. The audience stood up to say goodbye to the group invited by the Yaiza City Council to participate in the Remedios Festivities.
