The Latin American Music Center will present a concert at 8 p.m. on Sept. 30 in Auer Hall and online in honor of National Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month. The event is free.
The event centers around a performance of “Santa María de Iquique,” a folk cantata written by Chilean composer Luis Advis in 1969. The piece commemorates a failed Chilean miner’s strike in 1907 where the Chilean government violently suppressed workers.
Javier León, director of the Latin American Music Center, said Advis wanted the piece to act as a call to solidarity for social and political reform at the time. He said he hopes the message of perseverance despite adversity resonates with the audience knowing current world events.
The event will also include two other pieces the event’s website describes as “nueva canción,” a left-wing movement and musical genre from the Iberian peninsula. These pieces include works by folklorist and composer Violeta Parra and poet Pablo Neruda.
The concert will feature soprano Alejandra Villareal Martinez and tenor Nathan Krishnaswami, with narrator Laís Lara Vanin. Students, faculty and Jacobs School of Music staff will also be involved, according to the event's website.
