Anne Midgette, Washington Post

A blast of Cuban art is hitting the Kennedy Center this month. The “Artes de Cuba” festival kicked off at the Eisenhower Theater on Tuesday night with an exuberant cornucopia of music offering a foretaste of two weeks of performances — from a jazz quintet that offered one number a cappella, with only hand-clapping as accompaniment, to an 87-year-old chanteuse, Omara Portuondo, who coquetted with the audience, sang three songs with heart and engagement, and lifted the curtain, after it had come down, to offer a last enthusiastic goodbye.

The lid is off musical boundaries at this type of event. Many of the artists bring classical training to their own brand of improvisatory jazz, like Aldo López-Gavilán and Jorge Luis Pacheco, who offered a preview of their duo piano evening on Saturday with a lively Cuban medley. The Orquesta Miguel Faílde is a chamber-size ensemble devoted to danzón, the distinctive Cuban musical genre, led by a flutist — the grandson of the official originator of the genre, for whom the group is named — who played his way through the audience as the musicians took the stage.