Nuestra Musica at Smithsonian Folklife Festival

If you happen to be in Washington, DC June 30-July4
or July 7-11, you might want to take in the
Smithsonian's Folklife Festival on the National Mall.
This is the announcement regarding the Nuestra Musica
program. The other programs will be on Alberta, Canada
and Native American Basketry.
The Festival website can be found at:
www.folklife.si.edu
(This is one of my favorite activities of the summer,
and I try to volunteer for a few days each year - a
very rewarding experience.)

(Joseph - is this an appropriate use of this forum?)
- Natalie

Nuestra Música: Latino Chicago is the third of four
Smithsonian Folklife Festival programs of the
multi-year Nuestra Música: Music in Latino Culture
project, an initiative that explores and presents the
diverse, evolving, and expanding universe of música
Latina, which often unites and defines the largest
minority group and fastest growing population in the
United States. Other project components include the
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings series
Tradiciones/Traditions, Latino music sections in the
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and
Folkways websites, and multimedia features on the
recently launched Global Sound website.

The 2006 program will highlight the music and cultural
expressions of Chicago's diverse Latino communities
and explore the role they play in shaping contemporary
society, creating community, and confirming cultural
identity. Two premier grassroots Latino music groups,
researched and documented by Smithsonian Folkways
Recordings, will complement the Chicago artists and
reference the wider panorama of musical life in Latino
USA.

Musicians and dancers will engage the public in a
variety of settings, including demonstrations,
workshops, narrative sessions, and concerts that
suggest a variety of community music events. The
"coffee house" setting of La Peña, first introduced in
the 2004 Festival program, will feature
once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to hear musical
exchanges between musicians from Chicago and recorded
Folkways artists from other parts of the country.
Mural and graphic artists will complement musicians
and dancers by evoking the visual imagery of Chicago's
Latino neighborhoods. Additional workshops will
highlight Chicago's Latino radio traditions, foodways,
and artisans whose crafts are related to music and
dance.

This program, produced in collaboration with Chicago's
renowned Old Town School of Folk Music, complements
the 10th anniversary of the School's Latino weekly
musical event La Peña. California-based bilingual
radio station, Radio Bilingüe, will continue to
collaborate with the project and broadcast live from
the Festival.

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