Courtesy Photo Gregorio Uribe will perform today, Oct. 14, at the Maurice J. Tobin School.
Sociedad Latina is celebrating Latino Heritage Month with a month-long concert series, ¡Viva Nuestra Música!
“We’ve been doing Latino Heritage Month [celebrations] for years. This time we had an opportunity to do music-specific,” said Sociedad Latina Executive Director Alexandra Oliver-Dávila. “In past years, we’ve done music, movies, poetry. It’s not really anything new for us.”
“We hope people will look at Latinos as valuable contributors to U.S. history and culture…It gets tiring to hear all the negative aspects, so we want to emphasize all the successful Latinos who are successful citizens, businesspeople and artists,” Oliver-Dávila said.
¡Viva Nuestra Música! aims promote the contributions Latino artists have made and continue to make to the music scene, celebrate the tremendous diversity that exists within Latin music, and underscore the importance of preserving cultural traditions through Latino Heritage Month.
The first concert was last Friday and featured Yo-Yo Valdez, a former Sociedad Latina youth leader. Upcoming concerts will feature Gregorio Uribe, a Colombian songwriter, today at the Tobin Community Center; Cornell Coley, who performs Afro-Latin percussion, Oct. 21 at Mission Main; and Jorge Arce, a Puerto Rican and Afro-Caribbean musician, Oct. 28 at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
The concert series was possible because of a grant from the National Arts Endowment, Oliver-Dávila said.
“The greater focus on music [this year] is really wonderful,” she said. “[The grant] really allows us to bring in heavier hitters and have better marketing materials.”