Pianist and artist-in-residence at Bowdoin College George Lopez played a selection of music from Cuban composers at Bowdoin’s Moulton Union Tuesday evening as part of sister city celebrations between Brunswick and Trinidad, Cuba.

Movies, music, food and dance are part of the recognitions around town this week until April 3. The annual celebration is sponsored by the Brunswick-Trinidad Sister City Association and seeks to find the commonalities that exist between seemingly disparate parts of the world.

Brooklyn-born and raised in Belize, Lopez played selections from Cervantes, LeCuona as well as an emotional selection from musician, composer and friend of Lopez, Glenn Jenks.

Lopez said Jenks was living in Camden when he passed unexpectedly in January. Lopez had just finished recording Jenks’ songs and still keeps the voicemail of Jenks thanking him on his phone just before he died.

Following Jenks’ tango, “Las Manos de mi Padre,” Lopez took a moment to regain himself. Lopez said that is the piece of music that still connects him to his friend.

“Glen and I — that’s our meeting place. Wherever he is, whatever you believe, that’s where he and I are really brothers,” Lopez said, adding that he used to cry after playing Las Manos de mi Padre but now he feels like he’s still with him.

Lopez said the little time he was able to spend in Cuba, he learned much about the people, saying he took after his mother having no inhibitions interacting with strangers. He said he eagerly interacted with people in doorways, in businesses and on the streets.

Lopez took time at the beginning of his performance to point out that, although the Steinway he played while performing in Havana was in exquisite condition, many instruments in Cuba were like the one in the Moulton Union, with a broken key and cracked sound board.

Of LeCuona, Lopez said that had he not remained a Cuban composer, he could have easily been on the worldwide stage. LeCuona caught the attention of George Gershwin, who Lopez said loved LeCuona’s take on his Rhapsody in Blue.

Lopez said it was LeCuona’s cousin who wrote the Babaloo that Cuban actor Desi Arnaz made famous through “I Love Lucy.”

dmcintire@timesrecord.com

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