New Song Created By East End Residents Celebrates Diversity

SAG HARBOR, NY — An event is set to unfold with a focus on peace and unity during politically turbulent times — and a new song will be introduced representing diversity on the East End.

OLA of Eastern Long Island is set to present "Pachanga for Peace and Unity" on Saturday, March 11 at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.

Pachanga, organizers of the event say, is "a festive, lively style of music. The name came about to describe the genre in Cuba in 1959."

The event will feature live music by Mambo Loco, performing salsa, Certain Moves, with R&B, MilaTina, offering electro Latino percussion, and Willy Fuentes and Friends, with original music and arrangements

A highlight of the event will include the unveiling of a community inspired R&B classic featuring many diverse voices and musicians from the East End, organizers say.

“By the end of the summer, when the all the negative rhetoric around the election was building, I was convinced that we must create a project that showed how beautifully our East End represents unity, generosity and collaboration," Minerva Perez, executive director of OLA of Eastern Long Island, said.

Perez said she set out to create a new arrangement with the musical direction of Willy Fuentes, as well as the mixing/recording talents of his daughter Carolina Fuentes-Greinke.

Perez reached out to 12 singers and 16 musicians representing African American, Latino, Anglo, Shinnecock, and Peruvian indigenous members of the East End community.

The song, which features children and adults, is sung in both Spanish and English, and will be shared for the first time during Pachanga at the Bay Street Theater, Perez said.

“We even have a town supervisor featured in this song," she said, adding, "OLA hopes to bring back the sense of community without fear and hatred, as we continue to forge a way forward together."