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Assistant Professor of Music Spencer Topel was part of an American delegation of 10 composers and six instrumentalists who traveled to Havana, Cuba, to present their music and hear music created by their Cuban colleagues, reports NPR.

The music was performed at the annual Havana Festival of Contemporary Music and included Topel’s work, Details on the Strasbourg Rosace, which can be heard beginning at 19 minutes, 14 seconds, on the NPR website.

Topel and his American colleagues wondered how different their “aesthetic priorites diverged from those of the Cuban musicians,” the NPR piece says.

“I had a sort of a premonition of this the day before, when I went to a concert of Cuban contemporary ” Topel told the radio program, “and so much of the music has these continuous rhythm sections. And you just look around Cuba — rhythm is everywhere. Movement is everywhere.”

Listen to the full story, published 12/10/15 by NPR.