(Prensa Latina - Cumbancha) Havana, Cuba - After 18 years of silence, the International Varadero Song Festival returns this year to the beach resort’s amphitheater with famous Cuban and international performers, the National Information Agency (AIN) announced. Cuban Music Institute Deputy President Alexis Vázquez stated that the Culture Ministry and the institution decided to organize the event, very popular in the past.

According to Vázquez, the Festival, programmed for early November 2004, a month of the tourism low season, "should increase the flow of visitors" to Cuba’s leading tourist destination. The organizers of the music feast hope to enlist important Cuban and foreign song acts. The International Festival emerged in the late 1960’s and its last edition was held in 1986.