Thursday, Sep 20 2012 | - Sunday, Sep 23 2012 8:00pm Where: Pickman Concert Hall, Bard College | Cambridge, MA Price: $0 Age: All ages Site: venezuelansounds.org

Three remarkable admission-free performances at Longy School of Music of Bard College, September 2012. A classical pianist who nimbly moves through pieces inspired by the fancy footwork of a colonial couples dance. A flute player with the chops for Bach and Prokofiev, or for the complex sounds of the northern Amazon and the Caribbean. A jazz player who merges bebop and lush Afro-Latin traditions.

All three hail from a cultural powerhouse just emerging as a music hotspot. For three evenings, Boston will get a chance to hear the fresh and refined sounds of a country sparking major movements in both Western classical and Latin traditional music: Venezuela. Thanks to its revered system of large-scale classical music education (“El Sistema”) and its recent investment in traditional music and musicianship, Venezuela is bursting with innovative, technically stunning performers and composers able to move effortlessly between diverse African, indigenous, and Latin roots, jazz-inspired improvisation, and classical repertoire.