Fourth International Symposium on Latin American Music

Recently, I participated in the 4th International Symposium on Latin American Music held at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. This was a three-day event of musicians, dancers, musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and scholars from Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, United States, and Venezuela. Visit this site for more info.

I gave a performance-lecture entitled, “Javier Alvarez’s Temazcal: Speaking the language of a contemporary audience.” This symposium consisted of a wonderful amalgamation of ideas and approaches to consider when using influences outside of your own culture. The impact I experienced from this has given me encouragement to embrace the new language that develops out of the old language. Essentially my realization of Temazcal was created by research many joropo players and trying to understand how that folkloric music works. I applied those ideas to Temazcal and have incidentally developed a new language from the old. Embracing new ideas from collaborations can give way to new art.