The “Festival de la Voz Ucevista” is a popular singing contest organized by the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) every year to choose the most outstanding singers in two different categories: urban music and traditional Venezuelan music. This is how, annually, the best female and male voice is rewarded in each category. Both categories are made in the Aula Magna on different days.
In 1991, UCV resumed the realization of this singing contest when the Cultural Departmet was in charge of Dr. Ocarina Castillo. At that time, the jury of the urban categoty would be very important artists of the national pop scene, I remember that Ilan Chester and Yordano were invited. When I found out that they would be sworn in, I immediately enrolled in the “Urban Voice of Dentistry” in which I was selected.
Inspired to make the best possible representation of my dentist school, I chose a slightly transgressive song for the time, a funky from Marivana, “Classified Ad” that was popularized in salsa time in 1990. The song was a classified ad where one was looking for a couple with specific characteristics and even said that she wanted someone “without virus problems” in a veiled reference to the HIV epidemic in a time when talking about HIV was a taboo.
The day of the final of the Urban Voice, there were problems with the entrance to the UCV and I remember that Trina Medina – salsa singer – and Raúl Delgado Estévez – Conductor of the Orfeón Universitario – were two of the juries who supplied the invited artists for the impossibility of entering the university campus. It was a night in which I was nervous because for me, that Raúl Delgado was a jury was a greater challenge because he knew me very well and I knew how severe he could be in that aspect, it was not an advantage for my being Soprano of the Orfeón Universitario. Trina was and still is one of my favorite singers.
That night was wonderful, full of great talent where I met people who were in my life forever. I admit that I was a little rebellious with what was a trend in the University, at that time singing songs of the Cuban trova was a trend. I had the happiness of having a band of 10 wonderful musicians, among whom were: Julio Andrade, Enzo Villaparedes, Diego Álvarez, Humberto Meza, Abraham Saavedra, Vanessa Guillén, in the others.