by the El Reportero’s news services
The coming international tour of the Cuban band Gente de Zona stresses today by the inclusion of stages in Spain, France, Netherlands, and Israel, according to its director, Alexander Delgado.
Scheduled for April, the tour will promote the new album entitled “Visualizate,” to be released on April 22 by Sony Music.
“The volume has the collaboration of artists such as Pitbull, Marc Anthony, and Juan Magan, but we are recording another CD with Cuban friends, including Leoni Torres,” Delgado said.
Randy Malcom, member of the band, said before leaving for Europe and Asia, that they will perform with Enrique Iglesias in Quito, Ecuador, on April 3, during a show designed to combine Spanish and Latin American rhythms.
After the Eurasian tour in May, the band will tour in Las Vegas to participate in the Billboard Music Awards ceremony, to which they were nominated in four categories in 2016.
U.S. Poet Laureate and retired writing professor will receive the Robert Kirsch Award
Juan Felipe Herrera, United States Poet Laureate and professor of creative writing emeritus at the University of California, Riverside, will receive the 2015 Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement during the 21st Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
The award will be presented April 9.
“We are delighted to honor Juan Felipe Herrera’s remarkable 45-year career as a writer, teacher and activist,” Kenneth Turan, Times film critic and director of the Times Book Prizes. “His literary contributions include poetry, prose, young adult novels and children’s literature, and his work in all artistic forms highlights a life dedicated to giving voice to those who are not always heard.”
Herrera, who retired in March 2015 as a professor of creative writing at UCR, was named California Poet Laureate in 2012 and U.S. Poet Laureate in 2015. The son of migrant farm workers, Herrera earned a B.A. in social anthropology from UCLA, an M.A. in social anthropology from Stanford University, and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He joined the UCR faculty in 2005 and was the Tomás Rivera Chair in Creative Writing until he was named the state’s poet laureate.
Panama holds early music festival
Songs of the 17th and 18th centuries will be performed today by groups from Spain, Portugal, Cuba, Panama and Colombia, as part of the 2nd Early Music Festival.
The meeting, to be held until Sunday, Feb. 28, aims to show the identity and diversity of the European musical richness, whose rhythms came to America in late 15th century.
Tunes and mergers, especially from the Baroque period, will encourage each of the performances, as part of the program of activities of the event.
The opening concert will be held at the Monumental Historic Complex of Panama Viejo -declared in 2003 a World Heritage site-, where the Academy of Spain Piaccere will present a repertoire that includes the music the Spanish metropolis and its American colonies exchanged in the 17th century.
According to Arlene Lachman, president of the Arte Panama Foundation, the guest artists will perform music with historical criteria, with scores of the 17th and 18th century, and instruments of the time, such as harpsichord, theorbo, viola da gamba, lute, violin and recorders, among others.
“This event will put Panama on the international circuit of the major festivals in the region. It will also promote its position as a Latin American capital that promotes culture, arts, historic heritage and cultural tourism,” the president of the Organizing Committee added.
