Cross-Cultural Journeys: Latin American music from the Colonial Period and the Dictatorships, Sephardic Music and contemporary American music

In a program entitled Cross-Cultural Journeys, local musicians Lynn Gumert and Carlos Fernandez of Hightstown and members of the Zorzal Music Ensemble will present a program of Latin American folk, Baroque, and contemporary music on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 7:00 pm at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church located at 177 Princeton-Hightstown Road in Princeton Junction, New Jersey. Admission is free; free-will offerings will be accepted.

Zorzal features a vocal quintet, recorders, guitar, harpsichord, violin, violoncello, and Latin American, Middle Eastern, and African percussion. Originally established in Gettysburg, PA, the ensemble now features local musicians Kate Chen, Megan Helvering, Doug Helvering, Minju Lee, Momo Kusaka, Janet Walker, Bob Ramos, and Jina Choi.

The vocal and instrumental program draws on a mix of African, Native American, Sephardic, and European styles. The songs express a range of emotions, from ecstatic religious faith, to yearning for peace, to the sorrows of abandonment and the joys of love. 

According to Artistic Director Lynn Gumert, “the concert will feature colonial period songs that celebrate cross-cultural influences. The influences go both ways—Spanish composers drew on African and Native American rhythms, while indigenous composers incorporated European four-part harmony. One Native American song from Peru calls to Mary as the Earth Mother.” Zorzal will perform several jubilant negritos—Spanish-style songs in African dialect that use African rhythms—that celebrate Christ’s birth through the vibrant rhythms of New World dances. Other songs from the Sephardic oral tradition show the sharing that took place in Spain among Jewish, Arab, and European styles.

The concert will also feature songs from the New Song movement, which developed as part of social and political activism in Latin America beginning in the 1960s.  According to ethnomusicologist and guitarist Carlos Fernández, “these songs allow us to explore the continuity in musical styles heard in Latin American music through the ages, as well as the evolution of a social awakening among popular artists in Latin America during the late twentieth century.”

The concert will also include the world premiere of Desert Song, composed by Lynn Gumert, which was recently awarded Honorable Mention in the Eighth Aliénor International Harpsichord Competition. The piece draws on Middle Eastern scales and rhythms as well as on contemporary harmonies.

            For more information, please contact: 609-490-0196.