An Evening with Dr. Javier Soriano in conversation with Marysol Quevedo

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José Mauri y las músicas del olvido is the first critical edition focused on the work of Cuban composer José Mauri Esteve (1855–1937), based on manuscripts that are mostly damaged, fragmentary, or unpublished. Born in Valencia to Cuban parents, Mauri developed a prolific career as a composer, organist, and pianist across Havana, Latin America, and Spain.
This volume brings together, for the first time, a coherent collection of dispersed works, including previously unpublished scores and others that had only circulated in partial or unreliable versions. It features restored fragments of La Esclava, considered a turning point in the history of Cuban opera for its thematic and aesthetic treatment from a criollo perspective, along with a selection of songs, piano pieces, patriotic hymns, and orchestral works.
Each score is accompanied by a critical apparatus reflecting a rigorous restoration process based on paleographic analysis, comparative sources, and historical context. The book also offers a new reading of Mauri’s legacy through three historiographic lenses: marginal genius, structural oblivion, and national identity in tension.
The restored works allow us to reconstruct key musical spaces of 19th-century Cuba—such as the salon, the theater, the church, and the military sphere—which Mauri inhabited and transformed through his writing. More than a collection of scores, this book proposes a critical biography of the works themselves. Published under the label of CERMUS (Centre de Recherches et Études Musicales), the project was awarded a Research Grant by the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation.
This work invites us to listen—again, and for the first time—to the forgotten soundscape of Cuba’s musical past.New boost

Javier Soriano is a Cuban-born musicologist and cornettist. He holds degrees from the University of the Arts of Cuba and the Pôle Supérieur Aliénor in Poitiers, France, in musicology, music theory, and early music performance. He currently teaches music theory, analysis, and early music ensemble practice at the Conservatoire de Poitiers and at the University of Poitiers. He is also a researcher at the Centre d’Études et de Recherches Musicales (CERMUS).

He was appointed a member of ARTEMIS, the academic evaluation body of the European Association of Conservatories. He is the author of Fiesta electrónica en La Habana y poder simbólico (Lomas Editorial), with a foreword by Liliana González Moreno and Grizel Hernández Baguer. His work has been published in scholarly journals and outlets such as Boletín Música (Casa de las Américas), New York Classical Review, and Revista Clave, among others. He has lectured and taught in academic events and universities in Cuba, Colombia, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Austria, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Japan, Ghana, and Australia.
He is the recipient of the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation Research Grant, the Research Prize from the University of the Arts in Havana, and the Cubadisco Prize for Best Chamber Music Album (with Ars Longa). He was also nominated for the REMA Awards for Best Non-European Early Music Project.

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