Name: Roberto Fonseca
Nationality: Cuban
Occupation: Pianist, composer, improviser, arranger
Current event: Roberto Fonseca is one of the artists on the bill of this year's Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2026. For more information and tickets, go directly to the festival's website.
Current release: Roberto Fonseca's new album Nuit parisienne à La Havane, a duo live release with Vincent Ségal is out via Artwork.

If you enjoyed this Roberto Fonseca interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.



What were some of the musical experiences which planted a seed for your interest in jazz?

Many. You have to know that my interest in jazz came when I was a teen and learning classical music in Cuba.

But at that time, at school, if I played jazz with a friend, immediately the teacher would come and stop us. It was strange because we knew that in the US, Dizzy Gillespie was playing jazz on Cuban rhythms!

Anyway, as soon as I was at home, I would listen to Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Keith Jarrett and many others.

Where do most of your inspirations to create come from – rather from internal  impulses or external ones? Which current social / political / ecological or other developments make you feel like you need to respond as an artist?

Most of my inspirations come from inside. I don’t identify myself with any current, and my music is not a reaction or a response; it is rather what I feel that it is needed to share, values that are very needed today to be remembered.

Actually there is nothing completely new, because what touches you deeply, is the energy you put in your music, not the technicality. Most important for me it is the spirituality that I can share through my music, the authenticity of my feelings and the love that I’m aiming to spread.

Tell me a bit about the sounds & creative directions, artists & communities, as well as the colleagues & creative hotspots of your current hometown, please. How do they influence your music?

As you may know, I am the artistic director of the Jazz Festival of Havana. I am doing my best to promote our talents in Cuba, from the oldest to the youngest. In this frame, we are all influencing each other.

Cuba is for me a big laboratory. Not only the jazz festival, but also other projects that I lead with Merxi Records, which is the label that I’ve just created. Both are ways to gather talents from all over the Island, genres and genders. From classical to jazz, traditional Afro-Cuban to urban music.

These projects are actually representatives of how I see my own path in music. I am very open and eager to discover how this new generation contributes to keeping music alive. In Cuba, there are not that many initiatives and I struggle a lot to encourage creation and maximize Cuban talent.

What role do electronic tools and instruments play for your creative process?

I have been using electronics tool for some time as they give a contemporary touch to my music. They represent a possibility of exploring the unknown, both in terms of music and people.

For instance, in 2012, I made a collaboration with the British producer Mala on an album mixing rumba and timba rhythms with dubstep and electronics.

Actually, I often introduce electronics elements, loops and moderns keyboards in my music, you can take a look at Yo for instance.



It is important for me to build a bridge between the past and the present.   

Jazz has always had an interesting relationship between honouring its roots and exploring the unknown. What does the balance between these two poles look like in your music?

As I said before, it is important for me to build a bridge between the past and the present. This does not necessarily mean the use of new technologies.

My lastest album Nuit Parisienne à La Havane, which has just been released, is a duo with the French cellist Vincent Segal. There is nothing apparently modern in this album. However, this music is a choice, because it is a very simple music, which gives priority to the melody.

Vincent and I made this album in very little time, without preparation and any kind of prerequisites. This is actually what ‘present moment’ means. This album is representative of this link between the present and the past, it is this spontaneous fusion that creates the unknown.

People love it because they don’t have to understand the notes being played or anything, they just have to feel and receive. This album is actually difficult to categorize; it doesn’t fit into any box. But it remains very contemporary in the sense that it works.
 
How much potential for something “new” is there still in jazz? What could this “new” look like?

As I said before, the potential is in the unknown, so I cannot describe what it should be.

How, would you say are your live performances and your recording projects connected at the moment? How do they mutually influence and feed off each other?  

As I said before, a recording project can be as much life-changing musical experience as a live performance.

To come back to my latest experience with Nuit Parisienne à La Havane (but this is the way I am usually doing with my projects), I can say that the few shows we had the chance to perform until now have been a continuation of the recording process; we keep exploring with a very subtle evolution.

Improvisation is always here, but it’s not always obvious, perceptible.
 
What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to improvisation?

My approach to improvisation is deeply linked to spirituality.

In my opinion, it might be difficult to improvise if one does not feel free, in the existential sense of the term. Improvisation is synonymous with openness; you have to be in a very peaceful and mindfulness state to improvise. It is a state in which we are completely present and completely open to the past.
 
The Montreux Festival intends to preserve its archive of recordings for future generations. Do you personally feels it's important that everything should remain available forever - or is there something to be said for letting beautiful moments pass and linger in the memories of those that experienced them?

Why not archive music? It is a great idea; the past won’t prevent future generation to create!

And to have material at disposal is a great source of inspiration, it is not incompatible with improvisation - on the contrary. What exists isn’t the issue, it is what we do with it that can change the move.

Like in Cuba with all that resulted from the Buena Vista Social Club project. Those musicians were human archives and recording them was taking care of the continuity of the tradition.

I can only learn from the past music, it makes my own expression richer.