Mario studied at the Academia Naval in Mariel, province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, and became a Capitán de la Marina Mercante, Comandante de la Marina, Comandante de la Marina de Guerra, political activist and a revolutionary against the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Roberto Polo’s maternal grandfather, Mario Castro Hernández, was born in Havana in 1897, and died in exile in Miami in 1978. The house where Chané was born is also a monument and the carillon of La Coruña plays some notes of one of his most popular airs every time the clock strikes the hour.

He is buried in the cemetery of La Coruña under a monumental tomb near to his friend the great Galician poet Manuel Curros Enríquez. Spain, considering Chané one of its great composers claimed his body. In 1893, anti-royalists, they migrated to Havana, where they led a rich intellectual and musical life. Chané was decorated by the French composers Charles Gounod and Ambroise Thomas at the Ancien Palais du Trocadéro on the occasion of the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle.Ĭhané married Elvira Hernández Célis, who was born in Ferrol, Spain, in 1864. His first music teacher was his father, the virtuoso concert guitarist Juan de Castro. His maternal great-grandfather, the composer, conductor and musician renowned as Maestro Chané, was born José María Castro González in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in 1856.

Some of Roberto Polo’s ancestors merit mentioning. The family name Castro is a common Spanish name of Galician origin. He is the oldest son of Roberto Isaac Polo Perdueles, born in Cárdenas, province of Matanzas, Cuba, in 1923, and María-Teresa Julia Castro Carluch, born in Havana in 1926. Roberto Polo, an American citizen, was born Roberto Bernardo Polo Castro in Havana, Cuba, on August 20th, 1951.

Marisol espaillat strange nights