"With our music we Cubans have exported more dreams and pleasures than with our tobacco, more sweetness and energy than with all our sugar.".
Fernando Ortiz

Dr. Olavo Alen Rodriguez was born in Havana in 1947. As part of a family of musicians, he grew up surrounded by music and learned to play piano at an early age. From 1962 to 1969 he studied music at the Escuela Nacional de Arte and in 1968 he began to study music sciences with the famous Cuban scientist Argeliers Leon.
In 1974 he continued his studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, where he was awarded the Humboldt Prize for his exceptional exam work and, in 1979, received his doctor's cap.
While staying in Havana in 1978 Olavo founded the "Centro de Investigacion y Desarrollo de la Musica Cubana", a scientific centre for Cuban music with the aim of centralizing Cuban music research. The centre was made possible by the Cuban ministry of the arts and is completely financed by the Cuban government as an administrative part of the "Instituto Cubano de la Musica".
The institute has achieved important scientific results in the ethnology, psychology and sociology of music sectors, which are documented in numerous books and treatments.
In 1979 he published "The Tumba-Francesca-Societies in Cuba" and won the "Premio Casa de las Americas". From 1980 to 1993 Olavo was professor at the "Instituto Superior del Arte" in Havana, where he published a book about the evolution, notation and history of Cuban music.
In 1983 the ministry of culture in Cuba awarded Dr. Alen the national prize for cultural engagement of Cuba, the "Distincion por la Cultura Nacional". In 1985 he was awarded one of the highest professorial chairs from the scientific academy of Cuba.