MESA — NAU Choral Studies will present Spring Festival of Choirs & “Abya Yala — The Land in Its Fullness,” at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 7 at First United Methodist Church Mesa, 15 E. First Ave., Mesa.
With the support of the Kitt Fund for Musical Excellence and in collaboration with Latin American Studies, Chilean composer Freddy Vilches and his Matices Latin Ensemble will be in residence for a series of public performances.
Four members of Matices Latin Ensemble—two of which are traveling from Chile!—will be joining NAU Choirs for the Southwest premiere of Vilches’s Abya Yala (“The Land in Its Fullness”). Abya Yala draws on poetry by five Indigenous poets across Latin America who have experienced being othered. The music includes traditional folk and Indigenous music as well as Latin American ensemble in styles from each poet’s region.
Tickets
- $15.00 Adult
- $10.00 Seniors (65+) and NAU Faculty/Staff
- Free to NAU/CCC students with ID and youth (17 & younger)
About the Composer and Leader of Matices Latin Ensemble — Freddy Vilches Meneses is a composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and educator based in Portland, OR. Originally from Santiago, Chile, Freddy has recorded and performed extensively throughout the US and Latin America. He has recorded and performed with some of the most versatile Latin bands in the Northwest, including Latin Expression, Caliente, Palante, Bobby Torres Latin Band, and Sandunga, and he performs regularly with his own Matices Latin Ensemble.
Composer’s Statement – from Freddy Vilches Meneses — I’m very excited to be working with NAU’s Kitt School of Music on the Southwest premiere of my latest composition, Abya Yala Choral Suite. This multilingual composition is the result of many months of research and collaborative work with different poets in Latin America, in an attempt to vindicate historically discriminated languages and communities throughout Abya Yala. As a mestizo composer with indigenous roots in South America, my original idea was to compose a choral suite that would include poems in several languages spoken by our indigenous communities in South, Central and North America, as well as their versions in Spanish. I selected five bilingual poets from different regions of Abya Yala whose poetry spoke to me. My collaborative work with these great poets took different forms, ranging from writing adaptations to better suit the song format to discussing the styles of music and instrumentation we envisioned for each piece. These bilingual poems (Mapudungun, Aymara, Quechua, Maya K’iche’, Nahuatl, and Spanish) were chosen for their beauty and subtle, yet powerful messages. In these texts we find the constant presence of our ancestors, a profound love for the land “Pachamama,” and a strong call to preserve the languages and cultures of our indigenous communities for future generations. The result is this multilingual work that includes poets from the Mapuche, Aymara, Quechua, Maya K’iche’, and Nahuatl communities. Although directly related to Abya Yala, the topics addressed by these poets are universal, hence the beauty and relevance of these poems for all.