Cuban singer Ela Calvo died this Tuesday morning at the age of 89, due to respiratory complications caused by the coronavirus.
“Today I am short of words and I am overwhelmed by infinite sadness and helplessness when I learn that Ela Calvo, for many La Dama de la Cançó Cubana, has left us because of COVID 19,” he said in social media his niece Nayza Pérez Calvo.
“My aunt, continue your journey, and wherever you go, may your voice never be silenced. Your family mourns your loss and continues your legacy,” added the singer’s niece. to accompany the lovers of the song genre by the radio waves, the television and multitude of nocturnal premises where it used to interpret his varied repertoire.
Ela Calvo is considered one of the great divas of the song, with an extraordinary trajectory and deserving of the respect, the affection and the admiration of colleagues and the great Cuban public.
A note from the Cuban Institute of Music reported that the singer, born on February 18, 1932, died “as a result of pneumonia resulting from diseases typical of her advanced age.” Statements from the singer’s family environment clarified that Calvo had been infected with coronavirus and had died as a result.
A star of the Tropicana cabaret, Calvo shared the stage with great Cuban musicians such as Luis Carbonell, Elena Burke and the Els Meme Quartet. At the age of 20, he began his artistic career in 1952 with presentations on the Cuban Radio Circuit station.
Significant in his career was the inclusion in the Choir that accompanied the great Rita Montaner in the flourishing 50s for Cuban music. However, in 1955 he moved away from the microphones and it was not until three years later that he reappeared with what would be his final stage name: Ela Calvo.
His first television program was Cuban Night, which gave way to a large number of radio and television programs in national and international music magazines, and his consolidation as the leading figure in the cabaret Tropicana, where he debuted with the group of the master Rodolfo Pichardo and remained until the closing of these casinos.
Once the so-called ‘revolutionary’ process began, the reopening of the Cabaret Tropicana once again had one of its great figures of reference. The Panoramic and Arc de Vidre salons regularly include it in their billboards. Not out of taste, the star was, already in 1959, one of the most renowned solo vocalists of the Saint John club, popularly known as El Johnny in the Punta neighborhood in Miramar.
By family decision, it will be celebrated in an intimate ceremony, said the Cuban Institute of Music, an entity that extended its condolences from the Ministry of Culture and UNEAC to the relatives and friends of the great star of the song, who always will be remembered as one of the most original voices on Cuban stages.
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