La ENM Jazz Band

Cuba’s La ENM Jazz Band perform Benny Carter’s “Symphony in Riffs” at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola during the 2016 Horns to Havana Jazz Amistad.

Horns to Havana is a nonprofit based in New York City that donates thousands of instruments annually to Cuba. Although the country has a particularly rich jazz heritage – and a plethora of talented musicians – endemic poverty prevents many students from obtaining the proper tools to make music.

The organization also sponsors educational exchanges between American and Cuban schools. La ENM, or La Escuela Nacional de Musica, is Cuba’s national arts school for middle and high school students. Its campus, once a posh country club for Havana’s elite, was converted into a national academy after the 1959 revolution.

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