Music of the Americas: Hope

Chilean supergroup Inti Illimani was on our stage in 2009 and over the years we have released a couple songs from their excellent show. "Vino del mar" is a song by Patricio Manns that the group premiered in 2004, but it is dedicated to one of the victims in the 1970s of Chile's dictatorship. Marta Ugarte Román was kidnapped and killed by the security forces and her body thrown into the ocean only to return to the beach (hence the title "She Came from the Sea"), where a fisherman found her. The peaceful song, featuring Inti's careful vocal work, is soothing in a way that belies the tragedy of which it speaks and, at the same time, invites us to remember.

Our exhibition Joaquín Orellana: The Spine of Music is now closed, but you can still peruse videos and information on the exhibition page.

As part of the activities abut the artist and his work, Americas Society commissioned two video pieces set to his electronic music. Spanish artist Iraida Cano created a work based on Orellana's "Imposible a la X" (1979), which includes several of her drawings responding to Orellana's piece, written almost halfway through the brutal civil war that tore Guatemala apart during the second half of the last century, when peace seemed to be, in the composer's words, "impossible to the Xth power." Fortunately, the road to peace and justice started in 1996 with the signing of a peace agreement and return to democratic rule.

This version of "A redoblar" premiered last September as part of Music of the Americas' Magos Herrera week, dedicated to the Mexican singer and composer. The video, directed by Adrien Tillmann, was a collaboration between Herrera, Mônica Salmaso, percussionist Mathias Kunzli, and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider.

This Uruguayan song of hope by Rubén Olivera and Mauricio Ubal became an anthem of resistance against Uruguay's last dictatorship, giving hope that one day happiness would return to our voices, our streets, and our lives.

Friday, April 30, 7 p.m.

Watch the performance.

Chico Cabaret is a reimagining of Chico Buarque's Óperado malandro (1979) by Argentine director Mariana Ciolfi that builds on Buarque's condemnation of gender violence, corruption, and hypocrisy through a story told from the first-person perspective of the women who suffer at the hands of an exploitative system, woven through seven of Buarque's songs.

Mônica Salmaso and Júlia Vargas sing over arrangements by Paquito D'Rivera, João Luiz, Rita Payés, Adrián Iaies, Magos Herrera, Bianca Gismonti, and Clarice Assad.

The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concert series is made possible by the generous support of Presenting Sponsor MetLife Foundation.

The Spring 2021 Music program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

The Inti Illimani concert was supported by DIRAC, Cultural Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile.