Buena Vista Orchestra bring Havana to McCarter in February

The Cuban ensemble carrying the Buena Vista Social Club tradition plays Princeton's Matthews Theatre on Friday, Feb. 12.

Mid-February in Princeton is about as far from a Havana evening as the calendar gets. That's exactly why this booking works: a night of son, bolero and danzón in the coldest stretch of the year, in one of central Jersey's best rooms for listening.

The Buena Vista Orchestra plays McCarter Theatre Center's Matthews Theatre on Friday, Feb. 12, 2027, at 7:30 p.m. The date was announced Oct. 30, and tickets are available through McCarter.

The name will tell many readers most of what they need. In the late 1990s, the Buena Vista Social Club recordings introduced a generation of listeners worldwide to the music of an older Cuba, and the musicians behind them became unlikely international stars. The Buena Vista Orchestra presents itself as a continuation of that tradition. McCarter's own listing calls the group one of the world's leading ambassadors of traditional Cuban music, with a lineup drawing on players connected to the Buena Vista Social Club, the Afro-Cuban All Stars and Celia Cruz's bands, among others.

That connection carries real weight because the original circle has thinned. Some of the most beloved voices and hands from those records — singer Ibrahim Ferrer and pianist Rubén González among them — have died, and ensembles like this one have taken up the job of keeping the repertoire alive on stage, as presenters on this tour describe it. In other words, this is less a tribute act than a working band of Cuban musicians carrying songs they grew up inside of.

Less a tribute act than a working band of Cuban musicians carrying songs they grew up inside of.

The McCarter date is part of a wider run. The orchestra plays indigo at The O2 in London on Feb. 6, less than a week before Princeton, and it has been working through performing-arts centers around the U.S., with stops at rooms like the Lensic in Santa Fe and the UGA Performing Arts Center. For a central Jersey audience, though, the appeal is that you don't need to go to New York or Philadelphia for this one.

The Matthews is McCarter's main stage, a seated hall where acoustic instruments carry — exactly what you want when the music lives in the interplay of tres guitar, piano, horns and hand percussion. It's also the kind of night that suits a mixed crowd: people who wore out the original Buena Vista CD, people who discovered it later through the film, and people who just want two hours of warmth in February.

A practical note for a winter Friday: give yourself time for parking near campus, and if you're coming for dinner beforehand, book ahead — Princeton restaurants fill up on show nights.

And if the aisles start to move by the end of the night, don't fight it. That's the point.

Sources: Buena Vista Orchestra — McCarter Theatre Center (mccarter.org); Buena Vista Orchestra — Mayo Performing Arts Center (mayoarts.org); Buena Vista Orchestra — The O2 (theo2.co.uk); Buena Vista Orchestra — AEG Presents (aegpresents.co.uk); The Buena Vista Orchestra — Lensic Performing Arts Center (lensic.org); Buena Vista Orchestra — UGA Performing Arts Center (pac.uga.edu)