Environment and climate changeÁngela Álvarez tells EFE that she began writing songs in 1942 in Cuba with the dream of being an artist, but it took eight decades to release her first album, make a documentary and also win the nomination for Best New Artist in Cuba at the age of 95. the Latin Grammy Awards.Cheerful and with a great voice, energy and lucidity, Álvarez says that she feels "daydreaming", but she is already preparing the dress that she will wear at the gala on November 22 in Las Vegas, accompanied by her grandson Carlos José Alvarez.The also composer explains to EFE that he grew up watching his grandmother sing and thought that this was typical of Cuban families because his father is also a musician, and he did not realize that "Nana", as they say, was a "frustrated singer". ."I thought that everyone had a Cuban grandmother who sang and played the guitar," says the percussionist.A family project to record her singing her compositions revealed to her the richness in lyrics, melody and voice of her grandmother, and commenting on the subject with a friend, she asked if she was waiting for her to "die" to make it known.Álvarez, who is a composer for film and television, recounts that he began the desire and immediately summoned her grandmother to the recording studios in Los Angeles.What he started as an album, became a documentary, a first presentation of the grandmother before the public in the historic Avalon theater in Hollywood and also a Latin Grammy nomination.Along the way, Cuban-American actor and director Andy García joined this film project and by 2021 “Nana” had already released the documentary Miss Angela and her first and only album."She had everything in mind: the lyrics and the melodies and she used the guitar to compose (...), I just made the arrangements," says Carlos José about the album."Nana's" face becomes sad, telling that her father did not agree with her idea of ​​singing for her, but he remembers that in the midst of frustration she kept "a flame" of hope.Her songs, mostly boleros and danzones, were inspired by her love for her husband and for Cuba, and also denote the sadness of the exile and separation during the sixties of her four children and her husband, when they fled separately from the island.“I used to play the guitar and sing and that lifted my spirits and I forgot about it,” says Álvarez.Showing her notebooks with pasted manuscripts, he goes through the happy moments before the triumph of the Cuban revolution of 1959, but also the fear that her children would be indoctrinated under the socialist regime of Fidel Castro.She says that her Cuba never forgets her and that she would like to return, but she fears that everything has changed.“I don't know if I'm going to see the Cuba that I left behind,” he laments."When I repeat one of my songs, that I sing and that I composed, I close my eyes, I can go to Cuba," she says.Her grandson clarifies that her project, which began five years ago, "was done with her and not for her."“Nobody has that, or sings like her, but I didn't know about her.I knew she had a nice voice, I knew she sang, I knew she wrote, but I didn't appreciate how amazing she was,” she laments.Carlos José says that when he began his professional career as a musician and had to face composition, he realized how “difficult” he was and the “gift” that his grandmother had.He highlights the "courage" she had to enter a studio at 90 years of age and says that she realized that it was an inspiring story that could not be left alone in the family and had to be told.That's where the documentary was born, he says."My wish is that my generation and younger generations sit down and talk to their grandparents and ask them, they all have dreams, we all have dreams," he stresses.At the age of 95, which she turned last June, Ángela Álvarez competes for the Latin Grammy with a dozen young revelations, mostly from urban music: Sofía Campos, Cande y Paulo, Clarissa, Silvana Estrada, Pol Granch, Nabález, Tiare , Vale, Yahritza and her essence, and Nicole Zignago.Álvarez won the nomination with an album of 15 songs with titles such as How beautiful is Cuba and My great love and I walk without a course, which her grandson discovered among more than forty compositions that she had in her notebooks.The bolero is “something that you express, that you feel and if you are in love you write”.She says that her ability to compose is a gift from God and that she herself is surprised because she doesn't have a hard time.She receives the latest news in Spanish Monday, Wednesday and Friday.Subscribe to our newsletterOccasionally, you may receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune en Español.To ensure that the San Diego Union-Tribune en Español remains healthy and robust, your donation, in any measure, is now more important than ever.Help us continue to inform the community.To donate click on the logo.Privacy Policy Privacy Policy Terms of Service Sign Up For Our 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