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.
