I fell in love with Cuba. With the music, the culture, and mostly the people.After I first visited Havana in 2010, doing a week-long residency of workshops and collaborative performances with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, I knew I had to come back. 
In 2023 my dream came true. Collaborating with my long-time creative partner, Cathy Barbash, we were able to set up shop in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana with a room full of eager music students to work together to create all new compositions, surrounded by the museum’s vast collection of Cuban art as inspiration. We had five days to choose a painting, explore the different thoughts and feelings it inspired and turn those reactions into music. We also had to arrange, rehearse and perform the music in front of an audience of over 1,000 people. 

It seemed liked an impossible task and I wondered if I was crazy to attempt it. It was easily the most ambitious educational project I had ever done. It turned out to be one of the greatest experiences of my life. To witness and be part of the transformation these young students made – musically and personally – was deeply gratifying.This film is an opportunity to share the journey of these amazing young people, and hopefully inspire other people to recognize their own creativity, and to not limit themselves as they search for ways to express and find themselves. 
Ted Nash, August 2025

Ted Nash Bio
Ted Nash is a multiple Grammy Award-winning artist whose career spans music, storytelling, education, and filmmaking. Internationally acclaimed as a performer, composer, educator, and filmmaker, Nash creates work that combines artistic excellence with powerful social and human themes.


Raised in a household shaped by music, activism, and cultural engagement, Nash was deeply influenced by his parents, both accomplished musicians and committed civil rights advocates. That legacy of artistic curiosity and social awareness continues to define his work. His Grammy Award-winning recording Presidential Suite explored themes of freedom and human rights through music inspired by landmark political speeches of the 20th century. The project received widespread national acclaim, with DownBeat Magazine calling it “refreshing both in premise and execution… jubilant, forceful, striking.” In 2017, Nash was named Composer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association.


Nash’s creative work frequently bridges artistic disciplines and centers on stories of identity, transformation, and cultural connection. In 2020, he collaborated with acclaimed actress Glenn Close on Transformation, a multidisciplinary performance exploring personal change, acceptance, and the evolving nature of family and selfhood. The project featured performances by Wayne Brady, Christian Slater, Amy Irving, John Cameron Mitchell, and included a deeply personal contribution from Nash’s transgender son, Eli, who publicly shared his coming-out letter recounting his gender transition—an intimate and moving centerpiece that brought authenticity and emotional power to the work.


Expanding his artistic vision into film, Nash made his directorial debut with the documentary Resonancia, serving as producer and director. The award-winning film, which received honors including Best Director and a Special Jury Award for Bridging Cultures, follows Nash and a group of young Cuban musicians in Havana as they transform visual art into music through a collaborative composition workshop. The film explores creativity, identity, and cultural connection with emotional depth and cinematic intimacy.


Whether through music, live performance, or film, Ted Nash’s work is distinguished by its emotional intelligence, artistic sophistication, and commitment to illuminating the shared human experience.

Ten years ago, the U.S. and Cuba restored diplomatic relations. After my 3 decades of touring American performing artists throughout the world, I could finally collaborate with Cuban colleagues. Multi-Grammy winning saxophonist-composer Ted Nash and I created a jazz-art residency involved three Havana institutions: the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the Escuela Nacional de Arte, and the Havana Jazz Plaza Festival. It was a groundbreaking project: never before had three Cuban arts organizations collaborated, had gifted high school students composed new music inspired by art, or had Cuban students and officials shared their thoughts so openly, and never before had both Cuban and American governments supported such a project. The project was so unique that it needed to be recorded and shared, so we engaged a local production company to film it, funding it ourselves.

We focus on the gifted young Cubans. They tell their musical “origin stories”, discuss the art that inspired them, and work on their compositions. In challenging conditions, they express not frustration or despair, but share their pride in Cuba’s musical education system, their great faith in themselves and their talents, and their optimistic ambitions for the future. They recount their joyful self-discovery during the workshop, and we see their new works premiered in the Museum courtyard to a standing room only audience. The Museum’s Curator of Cuban Art and Cuba’s leading still photographer also speak on camera about the importance and success of the project.

Our local producer, Vedado Films, was virtuosic in helping us address the various governmental and operational challenges. Multiple approvals were necessary, and the project could not happen until after the Trump administration ended. Cuba’s electricity shortage meant that we had to provide our own generators to operate equipment at the Museum, as their daily allotment barely met their own needs.

Lastly, the documentary offers a flashback to recent history when there was a ray of hope for the positive development of US-Cuba relations, and an antidote to the patronizing media and propaganda-driven narratives and stereotypes of Cuba.
Cathy Barbash, August 2025

Cathy Barbash Bio
Cathy Barbash is a cultural diplomacy impresario, cultural catalyst, an independent producer, and a specialist in creative industry development in the People’s Republic of China and Cuba. She received a 2015 Silver Magnolia Award from the Shanghai government in recognition of her longtime contributions to the economic and social development of the city, and the 2018 Patrick Hayes Award from the International Society for the Performing Arts, in recognition of her transformative leadership in the performing arts.
Barbash has spent 40 years managing and consulting to organizations including The Philadelphia Orchestra, the United States Department of State, The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, The Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Juilliard School, and the China Shanghai International Arts Festival. A graduate of Harvard University, Barbash serves on the boards of Pink Fang (formerly Ping Chong & Company) and Early Music America. She is President of the Barbash Arts Foundation, which produces the annual Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition for young string players. She is a member of the International Advisory Council of the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum, and the National Committee on United States-China Relations.
Barbash expanded her work into Cuba in 2016. She collaborates with several theater and dance companies and maintains strong relationships with the Casa de las Américas, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, and the Havana International Jazz Plaza Festival.