Alberto Bolet Collection

Alberto Bolet is a legendary pianist and conductor born in Havana, Cuba, on September 10, 1905. In the 1920s, he learned to play the violin in Madrid before traveling to Paris to perform, as well as briefly in Budapest. Afterwards, he toured briefly as part of a musical trio across Europe and North Africa in the late 1920s and 1930s. In 1936 Bolet returned to Havana to found and organise CMZ, Cuba's first classical radio station. There, he acted as music director and conductor from 1937 to 1943, founding and running both the first radio symphony orchestra in Cuba. More than 300 concerts were broadcast on air in the first three years. He left Cuba in the late 1940s to coordinate orchestras across South America, such as the Ballet Espanol de Ana Maria. In 1951, he returned to Cuba and became music director of the Havana Philharmonic, a post he held until January 1959. Political conditions caused him to leave Cuba in February 1959, and he moved to Europe where he conducted a series of concerts in London and Germany, to later become director of the Bilbao Symphony, Spain. In 1968 was selected as musical director of the Long Beach Symphony, California, a position he held for ten years. He also acted as Professor of Music at the California State College at Fullerton and Guest Lecturer at the Institute of Lifetime Learning, Long Beach, California. Until his death on November 10, 1999, he was active in the musical community and conducted orchestras not just in South America, but the United States, England, Spain and France as well.