A Latin
American
Christmas

Salomé Sandoval, Co-Director

Friday, December 15 | 7:30 pm | Evanston
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

939 Hinman Ave., Evanston

6:30 pm Panel Discussion

Saturday, December 16 | 2:00 pm | Little Village
Mother of the Americas Catholic Church

2226 S Whipple St., Chicago

1:00 pm Panel Discussion

Sunday, December 17 | 4:00 pm | Buena Park

St. Mary of the Lake Catholic Church

4220 North Sheridan Rd. Chicago

3:00 pm Panel Discussion

Buy Buena Park Tickets

Tickets for children under the age of 16 are free, but must be reserved in advance.
Family ticket packs of 10 tickets for $100 are available using the code “Christmas10Pack.”

Following in the tradition of the beloved A Mexican Christmas, this festive Christmas program expands the sacred and secular music of Mexico to Peru, Spain, Guatemala, and the indigenous cultures of the Americas. The framework of the program is a funny and entertaining nativity égloga—a very short rustic Christmas drama—written by Juan del Encina in the 15th century. The play is a dialogue between shepherds who speak in a rustic brogue, ending with Encino’s villancico Gran gasajo siento. The dialogue will be read aloud in dramatic Spanish with English supertitles projected by Shawn Keener. The short play will be interspersed with spirited dances, sonorous motets, and festive villancicos spanning from the 15th through 18th centuries.

The program will feature traditional percussion and plucked instruments from the Iberian Peninsula and the New World, as well as a consort of wind instrumentalists and a vocal ensemble. The concerts will be multilingual, integrating New World dialects with traditional Spanish and highlighting indigenous and African elements in music composed by Spaniards in the New World. Pre-concert panel discussions will take place 1 hour before each scheduled performance.

Join us one hour before each concert for a very special pre-concert panel discussion about the music and history of the program. The panels will feature an interdisciplinary group of scholars and performers with various specializations and interests in the performance of early modern Latin American repertories. Panelists include: Liza Malamut (NC Artistic Director), Salomé Sandoval (Guest Artistic Co-Director), Lucía Mier y Teran Romero (Soprano, Linguist, Theatrical Coach), Paul-Gustav Feller-Simmons (Musicologist, PhD Candidate - Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University Presidential Fellow), Carlos Cuestas (Historical Plucked Instruments, Ethnomusicologist, PhD Candidate - City University of New York), Luciana Kube (Mezzo-soprano, PhD Hispanic Literature - Florida International University).

Salomé Sandoval sings and plays a variety of fretted string instruments such as lutes, early and classical guitars. A native of Venezuela Salomé holds a GPD in Early Music in voice and lute (Freundlich and Monahan) thanks to a scholarship awarded by Longy School of Music in MA; a MA from MTSU and a BM from IUDEM (Zea and Yelverton) both in classical guitar. She has played in master classes, radio shows, theater, movie soundtracks and television. Award winner in several competitions, Salomé has sung and played early, Latin American, and contemporary music in various ensembles and choirs in Venezuela and the US. Some of her CD recording collaborations include Camerata de Caracas, Rubén Martínez Santana and two of her own. Salomé’s recent collaborations include Duke Vespers, Raleigh Camerata, El Mundo, Newberry Consort with Ellen Hargis and her own group El Fuego.