For Immediate Release
Media Contact: John Cain
Luther Burbank Center for the Arts
707.800.7513
Santa Rosa, Calif. March 31, 2022 – Luther Burbank Center for the Arts (LBC) announced it will host a community dialogue about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the social and cultural fabric of Sonoma County on April 25 from 7:00-8:30 pm in the Lytton Rancheria Grand Lobby in Santa Rosa. Community members are invited to participate in The Sounds of Solidarity: Using Art as a Bridge to Connect Us, part of a collaboration between LBC and Green Music Center to establish an artist residency for Las Cafeteras, a creative, socially conscious band from East Los Angeles. Facilitated by LBC’s Latino Advisory Council (LAC), The Sounds of Solidarity is a new development in LBC’s efforts to provide inclusive and welcoming opportunities to hear from the community. The free event will include a panel discussion with the band members, small group discussions in English and Spanish facilitated by LAC, and a Q&A session. Las Cafeteras will perform a musical number during the evening.
“As Sonoma County’s gathering place for the arts, we have a responsibility to explore the potential for how the arts can connect a community and be an equalizing force for all who live here,” said President and CEO Rick Nowlin. “Through collaboration with Green Music Center and Las Cafeteras, we are using music to encourage individual conversations out of our back yards and living rooms and bring them together to strengthen the voices and resources needed to create positive change to our cities, towns, and neighborhoods.”
Las Cafeteras are Native and migrant children whose performance fuses spoken word and folk music with traditional son jarocho, Afro-Mexican music, hip hop, and zapateado dancing to tell the stories of social justice that shape much of civic and cultural life in the United States. They sing in English, Spanish, and Spanglish, using inspiring lyrics and a remix of sounds, along with traditional instruments like the jarana, requinto, quijada (donkey jawbone) and tarima (a wooden platform) to create music that builds bridges and, ultimately, “a world where many worlds fit.”
The community dialogue was inspired by LBC’s first collaboration with Las Cafeteras in 2021, during a virtual program to keep Sonoma County connected to the arts during the pandemic. Impressed by the band’s unique performance and viewers’ enthusiasm in a post-show discussion, LBC and Green Music Center established the artist residency to contribute to the county’s ongoing conversation about what its communities need to thrive.
Three-Day Artist Residency
In addition to the community dialogue the evening of April 25, Las Cafeteras will lead engagement activities with the Green Music Center earlier in the day, including a performance at a K-6 Spanish/English dual-language immersion school. On Tuesday, April 26, LBC will host a performance for students from a variety of schools across the North Bay, after which the band will join its music education staff for a student clinic as well as an evening master class for its Mariachi Ensemble. On Wednesday, April 27, Las Cafeteras will lead a workshop for education students at Sonoma State University and then present a public performance at Green Music Center at 7:30 pm. Students from the LBC Mariachi Ensemble will perform on stage with Las Cafeteras that evening.
To participate in the Sounds of Solidarity community dialogue, register at lutherburbankcenter.org
https://lutherburbankcenter.org/event/las-cafeteras-community-dialogue/.
Tickets for the April 27 evening performance at the Green Music Center start at $25. To purchase tickets, visit gmc.sonoma.edu.
About Luther Burbank Center for the Arts
A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Luther Burbank Center for the Arts is home to world-class performances, nationally recognized education programs, contemporary visual art, and many popular events. The Arts Center is located in the heart of the Sonoma wine country and ranked among California’s top performing arts presenters. Together with its resident companies, the Center presents more than 230 performances in music, dance, theater, renowned speakers, and comedy; provides education programs serving more than 50,000 children and adults; and hosts more than 1,000 community events a year. Owned and operated by the Luther Burbank Memorial Foundation, the Center relies on charitable community donations to achieve its mission – to enrich, educate, and entertain.
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