The mission of La Donna Musicale’s branch organization, RUMBARROCO, is to recreate, preserve, and popularize the vital rhythms and harmonies of the past that traveled from the Iberian Peninsula to Latin America and vice versa.

Rumbarroco’s Latin-Baroque Fusion ensemble uses period, folk, and contemporary popular instruments and performance practices. Rumbarroco explores the musical and cultural similarities and distinctions among Europeans, Africans, and Amerindians as experienced through Latin-American music, in order to unite today’s diverse communities, empower youth, and raise funds for humanitarian projects in Latin America.

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage, we will illustrate the intersection of early European music with the aural African and Amerindian traditions and the resulting link with current Latin-American genres, the African diaspora in Latin America and its lasting musical legacy in Ibero-American music, and the fusion of art music or “learned” music with folk and popular forms.

Using musical texts from the 17th and 18th century such us the Trujillo Codex and guitar treatises by Santiago de Murcia and Gaspar Sanz, we present the European, Amerindian, and African traditions that have survived in scores, recreating them through current performance practices of Afro-Latin music traditions in Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. We tap into our collective musical memory to blend past and present, connecting current Afro-Latin dances such as the Hatajo de Negritos, Joropo, Saya, and Plena with African-influenced dances such as the Cumbe, early Zarabanda, and Zarambeque in performances informed by both history and folklore.

Also in the program: Early vocal music from Spain and Mexico, with texts from the Iberian Cancioneros that depict black women in endearing terms and connected Latin American dances and instrumental improvisations.

Performers

Adriana Ruiz & Daniela Tosic, voice

Lisa Brooke, Baroque violin

Eduardo Betancourt, Venezuelan harp

Kera Washington & Ricardo Matute, percussion

Roberto Perez Oraa, bandola & percussion

Laury Gutiérrez, viola da gamba & Renaissance guitar