Compay Segundo sculpture to be unveiled soon at Cuba’s National Hotel

The personality of late Cuban musician Compay Segundo will be forever remembered in a bronze-cast sculpture at Havana’s National Hotel, scheduled to be unveiled for the anniversary of the hotel’s grand opening next Dec. 30.

Outstanding fine artist Alberto Lescay is the author of the piece that pays genuine tribute to Francisco Repilado Muñoz, the man born on Nov. 18, 1907 in Santiago de Cuba’s Siboney Beach who took Cuban music under his arm all around the world before passing away last July 14 in Havana.

In its quasi real-life size, the sculpture portrays Compay Segundo and his famous hat, let alone his broad smile and never-ending gleefulness that made him a larger-than-life character with an extraordinary musical legacy of his own.

Mr. Lescay explained he was intended from the word go to paint a personal picture of the Cuban musician and give the sensation of Compay’s return to the National Hotel where the crooner made a number of presentations along his fruitful career. The sculpture features Compay standing in a corner with his sheathed harmonica in one hand while puffing at a stogie

The artist said he found inspiration in both the personal and intellectual experience that bonded them together back in the 1980s when Compay returned to Santiago de Cuba to stay there for the rest of his life.

That was the moment when Compay joined Eliades Ochoa and the Patria Quartet to sing his world-known Chan Chan for the first time, a tune that soon became the symbol of his feelings, happiness and roguishness.