ESTAS TONNE - CUBAN DANCE

CUBAN DANCE

ESTAS TONNE/GUITAR

SONGWRITER: ESTAS TONNE

COUNTRY: UKRANIA

ALBUM: CUBAN DANCE

LABEL: ETAS TONNE

GENRE: CLASSICAL GUITAR

YEAR: 2019

 

           Estas Tonne (Ukrainian: Станіслав Тонне, born 24 April 1975) is a musician who describes himself as a "modern day troubadour"

In February 2017, I landed on a beautiful island called Cuba. The dream to set my feet on this special soil was long overdue. As it often happens in life, we dream of something for a long time, yet the outcome might be presented in a very different color. And so it happened: at last, I did find myself with a few dear friends walking around Havana.

Since I was about 9-10 years old, I’ve been playing a song that pretty much every kid used to play in a former USSR music school and still does, I guess. The name of this song is “Cuban Dance” or “Danza Cubana” for those playing it in other parts of the world. The thing is that since I was a little child, Sergey Borisovich Sherbak, the guitar teacher who introduced me to this song, as to guitar playing in general, has instilled in me a passionate interest towards different dances, so-called flavors of the world.

At that time, there were many world dances as part of my repertoire: Cuban, Arabic, Gypsy, Spanish, Russian, Jewish, Argentinian, Brazilian, Italian and so on. Could he foresee a future at that time? Perhaps not. Perhaps it was more like an intuitive attempt to make an introduction to the richness of this world. In this very case – through the music.

Unfortunately, Sergey Borisovich has left this planet in the early 2019 leaving behind the countless students. Some of them have become musicians; the others have grown into guitar teachers. Some have taken another pathway in life. Even though I spent my main years of development as an artist on the streets of the world, I always carry within my heart and fingers the gratitude for the foundation that this great man has laid down into my being since the very early age.

In fact, there were two great passions revealed in my childhood – guitar and football. If I wasn’t playing music, I was out on a field or in front of a wall of a local newspaper printing house banging my ball into it. At that time, I did know every great football player by face, by name, by country, by the team he was playing in. Who could think at that time that eventually I would be visiting all these places and sharing the sound of my heart with the world? Yet, the life with all its spontaneity and challenges is incredible and it’s truly amazing to be here, on Earth, even though at times we don’t think this way.

At the age of 15, due to the fact that my family had to relocate to another country, I did put a guitar aside, as well as my passion for football.

At that moment, my dear parents were unable to keep an eye on a teenage boy as they were facing both the immigration and health issues, while trying to adapt to a new place that they had moved to. Psychologically, I was pretty much left alone to dive into a new life I wasn’t prepared for. And yet, if it’s not for the patience, loving care and ongoing support since I can remember and always from Elena and Felix Tonne, my grandparents and S.B.Sherbak, I would never get the guitar foundation that eventually has evolved into what is presently called Estas Tonne’ Sound.

The “Cuban dance” was changing as I was changing; the variations of it brought me over the years to the deepest seas of Being. The song has been gradually losing its identity and the structure, while being reborn again and again as a new pathway of expression. It brought me to the “Song of the Golden Dragon”, when I was travelling for 6 months through Mexico with just a few objects at my disposal: a car, a suitcase with an amplifier and a guitar. No bankcards, no telephones, no computers, no GPS. Of course, by that time I already had more pieces in my repertoire, as, while travelling, they were forming along the path into short stories. Eventually, it brought me to the “Internal Flight”, which completely changed my perception of what music is and what life is about.(…)

A SHARING FROM HEART TO HEART, BEYOND WHAT SEPARATES US, YET OF WHAT UNITES US ALL IN LOVE, TRUST AND MYSTERY.