The Oakland Symphony will give the premiere performance of Rebeca Mauleón's first Symphony, Suite Afro-Cubano tomorrow, Friday. She was one of four composers selected from 160 nominees for a grant to write the piece, which has four movements:

I. Aboriginal Sunrise (imagine Taínos gathering at sunrise to play flutes and drums)

II. Espíritu Gitano (a juerga flamenca -- like a Spanish rumba)

III. Ancestral Voyage (a toque for Yemayá with echoes of modern jazz)

IV. Danzón-Mambo (Cuba meets Leonard Bernstein meets Pérez Prado)

For tickets and more info, click here

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UPDATE: Tom's new Issac Gallery is Up

This is like watching the actual ballet performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring  after hearing the music alone for years. Rueda con Ritmo have started with Issac's December 1997 El Palacio version of La vida sin esperanza -- in my humble opinion the greatest  single live timba performance of all time --  carefully edited it down to 5 minutes and choreographed an elaborate rueda routine that does justice to all the incredible gear changes.

Behold!

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Four great Bay Area shows Tom and I will cover in the next week:

Tonight - Thursday: Rumbankete at Yoshi's Oakland

Saturday - Sandy Pérez, Michael Spiro, Lázaro Galarraga at Dance Mission Theater

Friday the 19th: Issac Delgado at Bimbo's 365 Club

Friday, Feb. 26 -- Premiere of Rebeca Mauleón's symphonic debut: Suite Afro-Cubano.

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Volume 4 is now available in hard-copy on CreateSpace.

Audio files and eBook at LPM.

Click here for more details -- Vol. 5 coming next week!

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