Birenbaum Hosts Latinx Musicians Showcase
On Tuesday, the Latinx Music Union highlighted a variety of Latinx musicians and composers in the Biren- baum Innovation and Performance Space.
On Tuesday, the Latinx Music Union held their first indoor performance during the pandemic in Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space. The union’s latest event, the Latinx Musician’s Showcase, featured a variety of acts, including classical vocal performances, modern Latin songs, and solos on flute, guitar, bassoon, piano, and clarinet.
Daniela Machado, Conservatory fourth-year and co- chair of the Latinx Music Union, said that the mission of the union is to spread Latinx culture to campus. She wants to facilitate a space wherein the Latinx community can share in cultural and musical learning.
“Latinx Music Union is about creating a space for learning, appreciating, and spreading Latinx music and Latinx culture on campus,” Machado said. “I really just don’t think there was an emphasis before our organization was started. It’s a space for Latinx creators, musicians, and people to just get together to share our culture and share our music and, really, it’s for everyone. I want to emphasize that it’s to share our music with everyone.”
Conservatory fourth-year Isabel Fernandez, who co-founded the organization in 2019 with Gabriela Linares, OC ’20, added that in addition to spreading Latinx culture across the campus, they are also working towards diversifying the repertoire studied at the Conservatory.
“Our organization wants to show the campus that there is this huge library of composers that are not performed at all,” Fernandez said. “Our motive is to start performing these pieces so that professors and deans can see that there is this whole world … that they can incorporate in their programs. In the Conservatory, we’re so used to performing so many works of Eurocentric and Western composers.”
For both Fernandez and Linares, their initiative to counter Eurocentrism in music and uplift Latinx voices is close to home. They drew from a shared musical reper- toire in the process of realizing LMU’s initiatives.
“Gaby and I, we grew up singing with other composers because we were both from Puerto Rico, so we decided to create LMU to just bring to campus this whole other archive of composers,” Fernandez said. “The goal is to also showcase the Latinx musicians here at Oberlin and show that they are really talented.”
Conservatory first-year Gabi Allemana, who performed in the showcase, feels that finding a place to share parts of your identity through music is really important. A student in the Jazz Department, she sees the group as a vital part of her college experience.
“This is something I’d really wanted to be a part of since the [Jazz Department] is mostly one demographic,” Allemana said. “I did a lot of Brazilian music with my dad at home, and I’m trying to find a space where I can do that again. I thought this would be a perfect place to start, showcasing that side of me and doing that with other people.”
Machado explained how being a part of the Latinx Music Union helped her connect with her culture as well. She’s found that establishing a space for Latinx music has given her a sense of respite and belonging.
“My mom is from Colombia and my dad is from Puerto Rico; I grew up around this type of music,” Machado said. “Coming here was a little shocking; there was a lack of what I grew up with that was so abundantly found on every corner. There wasn’t really a space where our music was played or shared. It’s just nice to have a space to share music that we all grew up with.”
For Fernandez, founding the Latinx Music Union was an essential means of sustaining her selfhood as a performer. Having grown up with this genre of music, Fernandez feels her identity is completely tied to her musical heritage.
“It was ingrained in my culture,” Fernandez said. “It was ingrained in my musical studies too. For me, it’s important because, personally, it feels like I’m not complete without it. As a performer, I want to show my true self, and that’s a part of me.”
Allemana explained how she hopes that the event will promote and share Latinx music and culture on campus and within the Conservatory. In the days prior to the performance, she started to get excited about sharing that part of herself with the audience.
“I think it’s gonna be really powerful to show that side of me,” Allemana said. “In the Jazz program, the Latinx side of the music isn’t really showcased at all, so I think it’s gonna be really cool to actually get a whole group of people together that are all from different Latin American countries.”
Similarly, Machado explained that the show is truly a representation of the diversity in Latinx music. She feels the showcase highlights the plurality of the Latinx experience.
“Latinx music isn’t just from one place,” Machado said. “It’s from a whole bunch of different places, and we have people from all over showcasing their music and what Latinx music means to them.”
Audience members enjoyed classical vocal performanc- es from singers such as Ricardo Perez Guerrero, who sang “Estrellita,” a song by Mexican composer Manuel Ponce; and Isabel Merat, who performed “El Majo Discreto,” a song by Spanish composer Enrique Granados. The show was not limited to voice performances and featured a variety of musicians including Gabriel Cruz Ruiz, who performed a Venezuelan folk ballad on flute; and Maya Irizarry Lambright, who performed Eugene Ysaÿe’s Violin Sonata in D minor, Op. 27, No. 3.
What was perhaps most exciting about the showcase was the opportunity for a full house of audience members to engage with this music. During the more upbeat songs, the audience was invited and encouraged to have fun and dance around to the music onstage. Fernandez was moved by the audience’s enthusiasm.
“It was also a very emotional scene,” she said. “It was really packed; there were people standing up in the back because they couldn’t sit, so it was very great to see the support. Because you know, I feel like we work so hard and we don’t show our skills enough and what we’re capable of. It was just a very great experience.”
The Latinx Music Union is unsure whether they will be holding another showcase next semester. In the meantime, the ‘Sco will be hosting a show featuring Latinx artists and musicians on Jan. 15.