This girl travels the streets and performs on stages in Las Tunas, Santiago, Havana, and Villa Clara, all over Cuba, and occasionally in Germany, Canada, Costa Rica, or France. Always with her guitar on her back and that haughtiness that betrays the Russian, Greek, and Spanish mixture, making her a unique Cuban.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- She chose to live in Las Tunas more than 12 years ago, but from here, she expands everywhere, like an infinite wave of contemporary sonority.
Elvira María Skourtis Vives (Havana 1972) never ceases to amaze me. A phrase has never been so literal, and that is that she is "a complete woman." I see her as the mother of two teenagers whose careers are on the rise, I see her as head of the Guitar Chair and teacher at the professional art school El Cucalambé, in Las Tunas; concert soloist, director of the Sultasto guitar quartet and vice-director and lead guitarist of the Isaac Nicola guitar orchestra.
She is also president of the Music Section of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac). And also serves as the Only National Tribunal for the Level Pass Examination and the National Guitar Competition in the Professional category.
But she is passionate about teaching and the perfection of pedagogical methods in the teaching of art, which is why she is engaged in the presentation of the project of Doctorate in Sciences on Art, with the theme Methodology of the teaching of the Guitar, by the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), already evaluated by the Scientific Committee and the Doctoral Committee, and awaiting final approval.
She was prepared for this, as she had previously taught at the National School of Art and the Amadeo Roldán and Manuel Saumell conservatories. In 2007 she was summoned by the Guitar Chair of ISA to teach the subjects of Ensemble Practice and the History of the Guitar, where she obtained the category of Instructor Professor.
Elvira Skourtis claims to be 27 years old, but she was born an artist. She traveled the path of definitions to end up with this torrent of concerns for the piano, dance, theater, and guitar.
She began studying guitar when she was 8 years old; she graduated from the Amadeo Roldan Conservatory, and -years later- from the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), both with a Gold Title.
Her maturity as a concert performer involves her in several projects, never solo because, she says, with only her instrument she does not achieve everything she wants to express.
The stage shines with her performances because, in addition to the chords on the guitar, she is accompanied by the elegance and glamour of a great artist. In the audiovisual produced by Waldina Almaguer, Esta Mujer es una Isla, she says that she takes care of her hands because they do the chores, caress her children, fix her body, and are the same hands that make her art possible. But her art is made from a more sublime, more conceptual fiber, it is made from the thought and respect to a Cuban and universal guitar tradition that includes Leo Brawer, Jesús Ortega, Víctor Pelegrini; besides Costas Cotsiolisde, from Greece; Shin-Ichi Fukuda, from Japan; and Joseh Urshalmi, from Israel; of whom she was, also, her disciple.
In 2004, she made a national tour as a member of the Guitar Orchestra, and in 2008 she made another one as a soloist.
She has performed in the most important concert halls in the country. It is also a wide range of awards that are summarized in his first phonogram, Mujer que sueña Guitarras, recorded at the EGREM Studios in Santiago de Cuba and for which she obtained, in 2021, the nomination for the Cubadisco Award.
As soon as I can talk to Elvira, as we have done as friends drinking tea, I will tell her: "I want to write all the stories that nourish you, everything you want the world to know about the incredible woman you are."
