A Matter of Life and Death: Sol y Canto and Melodic Vision Make Every Moment Worth Living in NOCHE DE MUERTOS: WELCOMING OUR ANCESTORS HOME
Multi-Media Celebration of Mexican Day of the Dead Marks Release of New Sol y Canto CD, CADA DÍA UN REGALO (EACH DAY A GIFT)
These days everyone seems to be obsessed with time; stopping time, to be more precise. Nobody wants to get old and everyone is running out of time. But the pan-Latin band Sol y Canto and their artistic collaborators Melodic Vision may hold the key to a musical fountain of youth: death! Or at least respect for it.
A multi-sensory celebration of the Mexican Day and Night of the Dead, Noche De Muertos: Welcoming Our Ancestors Home combines the musical talents of Sol y Canto and Melodic Vision violist/violinist Rebecca Strauss with giant projected photographs created by photographer Susan Wilson documenting the celebration of the holiday in the rural Mexican state of Michoacán. Images of traditional dancing skeletons, marigold bouquets, bustling market places, and the faces of celebrants in the town of Pátzcuaro, epicenter of Day of the Dead festivities, are accompanied by live interpretations of beloved Mexican classics and original songs composed for this show in a haunting and lively combination of Mexican and pan-Latin rhythms.
The performance embodies an emerging ethos that questions living life on overload, always feeling behind, and not appreciating the moment, drawing on Mexican and Pan-Latin philosophies that maintain that by celebrating death people can appreciate life and stay connected to their past. Or to put it in the words of the poet Octavio Paz, “To the people of New York, Paris, or London, ‘death’ is a word that is never pronounced because it burns the lips. The Mexican, however, frequents it, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favorite toys and most steadfast love.” The same sentiments are echoed in Cada día un regalo (Each Day a Gift), Sol y Canto’s latest album, whose release coincides with the Noche De Muertos tour.
Noche de Muertos has had as profound an impact on its creators as it has on audiences. Sol y Canto lead singer Rosi Amador lost both of her parents within two recent years. Last fall, on the exact anniversary of her father’s death (to the minute), she found herself performing the work two blocks away from Ground Zero in New York. She was taken by how powerful the holiday was for reconciling feelings of loss for loved ones. “I wish I had something like this in the middle of my grief,” says Rosi, who moved to the mainland U.S. from Puerto Rico as a teenager. “It would have been a wonderful gift for me to do something like this. It really struck me what a beautiful tradition it was.” Brian, who was born and raised in New Mexico, recalls an interview with a Buddhist monk who claimed that the secret to happiness was to spend five minutes a day thinking about death. “What I took away from that is the idea that death is not something we have to avoid speaking of or being aware of. It’s a part of life, you need to accept it. Be aware of the temporariness of your life. That is the only way you can live it fully.”
About the Noche De Muertos Artists
Melodic Vision weaves music, photography, and history into a seamless artistic event, creating enlightening and heartfelt journeys that are both educationally engaging and spiritually transforming. Artistic director Susan Wilson is a highly respected photographer, writer, educator, and lecturer who has exhibited her artwork in dozens of shows, and gained national recognition for her images of performing and literary artists. Music director and violist Rebecca Strauss is known as a fine performer, professional businesswoman, and beloved educator in the Boston arts scene. An alumna of Oberlin Conservatory of Music, she has played with ensembles such as the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, the Boston Ballet Orchestra, Opera Boston, Boston Lyric Opera, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and performed with popular artists ranging from Marc O'Connor and Andrea Bocelli to Led Zeppelin and K.D. Lang. Melodic Vision website: http://www.melodicvision.com
Sol y Canto is descended from an exceptional musical lineage – lead singer Rosi Amador is the daughter of influential Puerto Rican vocalist and Broadway actress Josephine Del Mar, whose band gave “The Mambo King” Tito Puente his start. Award-winning New Mexican guitarist/musical director Brian Amador, whose fresh compositions and arrangements anchor the sextet’s unique sound, is a past winner of the Mass Cultural Council “Excellence in Composition” grant. Accompanied by an ensemble of seasoned Latin musicians from Perú, Panamá, Uruguay and Argentina, Sol y Canto’s soaring angelic vocals, sumptuous Spanish guitar, bass, flutes, and percussion promise a Latin musical feast. Invited to perform in venues as diverse as the White House, the Kennedy Center, Symphony Hall in Boston and Springfield, MA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Getty Center and the Museo de Arte in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Sol y Canto has established a national reputation for its unique interpretations of Latin music. This fall, Rosi & Brian celebrate their 23rd year as “Boston’s sublime ambassadors of the pan-Latin musical tradition” – Boston Globe. They’ve won "Best Latin Act" from the Boston Music Awards and “Best of Boston” from Boston Magazine.
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