Noche de Muertos is a collaboration between Melodic Vision and Boston Music Award-winning Latin music ambassadors Sol y Canto to illuminate Mexico's Day and Night of the Dead.
This extravagant holiday celebrating death is brought to life in a haunting multi-media production combining live music with stunning giant projected images. Assisting the BMC in bringing this event to southeastern Vermont audiences are the SIT Graduate Institute, Vermont Academy and Brattleboro Area Hospice.
A multi-sensory celebration of the Mexican Day and Night of the Dead, Noche De Muertos: Welcoming Our Ancestors Home combines music with giant projected photographs created by photographer Susan Wilson documenting the celebration of the holiday in the rural Mexican state of Michoacon. Images of traditional dancing skeletons, marigold bouquets, bustling market places and the faces of celebrants at the epicenter of Day of the Dead festivities, are accompanied by live interpretations of 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
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 dia un regalo," (Each Day a Gift), Sol y Canto's latest album, whose release coincides with the Noche De Muertos tour.
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 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 performer, professional businesswoman and 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 with popular artists ranging from Andrea Bocelli to Led Zeppelin.
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 sextetÄôs unique sound, is a past winner of the Mass Cultural Council Excellence in Composition grant.
Accompanied by an ensemble of seasoned Latin musicians from Peru, Panama, Uruguay and Argentina, Sol y Canto's soaring 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, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Getty Center, Sol y Canto has established a national reputation for its unique interpretations of Latin music.
This show is recommended for adult audiences and children no younger than 11 years of age. Tickets are $15 adults and $5 students.
For tickets to the Saturday, Oct. 11, at 7:30 p.m., Noche de Muertos performance at SIT, call the Brattleboro Music Center at 802-257-4523 or visit www.bmcvt.org.
For tickets to the Thursday, Oct. 16, 7:30 p.m., Noche de Muertos performance, at Horowitz Hall, Vermont Academy, Saxtons River, call 802-869-6212
