Havana, January 26 (RHC)--Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez received on Wednesday artists who took part in the 37th International Jazz Plaza Festival. This event took place in Havana between January 18 and 23.

Together with his wife, Lis Cuesta Peraza, the Head of State told the guests that the meeting "has a lot to do with the energy, with the spirit, with the emotions that the recently closed Jazz Festival left us with."

The dignitary commented that it "had great importance, great significance": "it was necessary for us -he emphasized- to thank you,  the Organizing Committee, the institutions, and all the artists who participated, for this contribution."

"After we have lived a terrible year and a half with a pandemic, U.S. pressures, an extremely complicated economic and social situation due to all the things that you know have happened in the country, we have to fill it with spirituality."

Diaz-Canel told the artists about the need of "providing joy, emotions; so that people can renew their aspirations." And he valued the importance of holding a Jazz Festival in conditions that "we knew" were complicated.

"Everything was challenging," he said; "we knew that it would be difficult for our friends who were in other places to come. They were going to be under pressure as they are under pressure now when they return.

Díaz-Canel Bermúdez stressed to the guests: "I think the Festival was excellent: excellent for what they delivered, excellent for the quality, excellent for the virtuosity. I was able to be in two concerts, so this is not a compliment; I was in two concerts that we enjoyed tremendously as a family, and we were able to appreciate the quality".