Sun, travel and the chance to help others in Cuba are on the agendas of four ISU professors this week.

During their one-week stay in Cuba, William David, Mahlon Darlington, Jonathan Sturm and George Work, professors of music, are performing and teaching master classes to students at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. The trip is part of the “Send a Piano to Havana” philanthropy project.

All four professors are members of the Ames Piano Quartet, a chamber music ensemble that has been in existence since 1976.

“This is an historic event,” Darlington said before embarking on the journey. “It’s very difficult for Americans to enter Cuba.”

“This opportunity hasn’t existed before. We are one of the few American groups to enter Cuba,” David said. “It has been 40 years since an American music group has entered Cuba.”

The trip marks the first time Sturm has left the country for a concert with the quartet since joining five years ago. For the rest of the group, this is not the first time they have gone beyond U.S. borders. The quartet has previously traveled to Taiwan, Europe and Mexico.

“We get along really well and play well, and it is a privilege [to go to Cuba],” Sturm said.

“Send a Piano to Havana” has been sending piano technicians to Cuba to tune and work to repair pianos for the past eight years.

“Because of the trade embargo, there haven’t been a lot of new instruments in the country and a lot of the old ones are in bad shape,” David said. “Lorlin Barber is our piano tuner and a member of ‘Send a Piano to Havana.’ He is also a supporter of our quartet and he is the one that told us about the opportunity.”

“He said to us that we should go down there,” Sturm said. “We called down and worked it out with the Cubans. It’s sort of our own thing.”

During their stay, the men will be performing three classical music concerts as well as instructing Cuban music students.

“We will be performing in a large music hall, which is supposed to be [Cuba’s] top auditorium for music – one at the university and one at a beautiful church,” David said.

“It’s going to be a really new eye-opening experience,” Sturm said, “There are some very talented Cuban musicians. We don’t know what the talent is like down there.”

The goal of the quartet is to teach Cuban students how to be better chamber musicians.

“We just don’t know what they want from us,” Sturm said. “We will teach them how to play their instruments better if they want.”

The trip is not all work for the four members. There is also some scheduled fun time for the beach and a tour of the city.

“I am looking forward to the beautiful weather down in Cuba,” Darlington said in an interview last week. “Because of the embargo you don’t usually get to see the beautiful parts of Havana.”

“Send a Piano to Havana” helped to fund some of the expenses through their own treasury. The quartet raised the rest of the money themselves by performing in benefit concerts, applying for grants and digging out of their own pocketbooks.

“Iowa State is subsidizing the trip, but we also got help from a foreign travel grant, and by playing some benefit concerts,” David said. “It’s going to be a really exciting experience for us. It’s kind of a step into the unknown.”

“We’re excited. I don’t know if any one of us is feeling anything but positive emotions about this,” Sturm said. “I couldn’t travel with a better group of guys. For us it is a once in a lifetime [experience].”

Along with practicing for the trip to Cuba, the quartet has also been working on its eighth commercial CD, which will be released this spring.