Lewis has sung in many ensembles throughout his life, but he said he still gets nervous before each ?performance.
“I’ll do different breathings or sometimes with my hands shaking I’ll squeeze them really tight and try to relax them,” Lewis said. “I do different exercises to get mentally ready. I’ll pray before a performance or try to eat a banana.”
Friday night, Lewis and his 13 other ensemble members performed in the LAPME annual Valentine’s Day concert at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center. The concert’s repertoire included both bad luck-themed songs to represent Friday the 13th and love-themed songs to represent Valentine’s Day.
Before the concert, audience members received programs with lyrics to the songs because most of the music was either in Spanish or Portuguese. Arwa Merriman, a Bloomington resident, said she was grateful for that because she doesn’t speak Spanish.
“I’m gonna need those,” Merriman said, laughing. “I think that’s very helpful, but I might have been able to get a sense of what it was about just by the mood and ?emotions.”
The ensemble started with a Tango medley, or a group of songs combined together to sound like one longer song. The first and second songs, titled “Tango Del Diablo” and “Tango de la Muerte,” invoked a more serious tone.
“A lot of the music is really sad, really melancholy,” Lewis said. “We tend to sing a lot about losing love, missing our lovers, never finding love again, woe is me and lots of melodrama.”
Following that, the ensemble performed a Chôros Medley representing the music stylings of Brazil. Then, Lewis and fellow vocalist Venus Hernandez sang the first duet of the Boleros and Ranchera ?style music.
“My favorite is probably ‘Historia de un amor,’” Lewis said. “I like kind of the interplay between me and Venus. Especially ... the duets of the people make it more ?romantic.”
The ensemble finished with an American Medley.
“I think that the American songs are a really strong way to end because the people are familiar with them and we arranged that medley being in the vein of a finale,” said Ben Wedeking, an IU graduate student and Latin American Music Center staff member who arranged the music for the concert.
As Lewis exited the stage after the concert, he smiled at the audience. Lewis is studying to get his doctorate in choral directing and he said he might be interested in further pursuing Latin American music.
“It’s always good to try new things,” Lewis said. “I’m definitely, as a result of this, more experienced in Latin American music and ?interested in it, too.”
